ANTARCTIC 
PENGUINS 


ANTARCTIC 

PENGUINS 

A  STUDY  Of    THEIR   SOCIAL  HABITS 
BY 

DR.  G.  MURRAY  LEVICK,  R.N. 

ZOOLOGIST    TO    THE    BRITISH    ANTARCTIC    EXPEDITION 

[1910-1918] 


NEW  YORK 
McBRIDE,  NAST  &  COMPANY 

1914 


Printed  in  England 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION  1 


PART  I 

THE  FASTING  PERIOD  17 

PART  II 

DOMESTIC  LIFE  OF  THE  ADELIE  PENGUIN  51 

APPENDIX  119 

PART  III 

McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL  125 

A  SHORT  NOTE  ON  EMPEROR  PENGUINS  134 


20509&2 

^^^^XVJ^NSS 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  Occasionally  an  unaccountable  '  broodiness '  seemed 

to  take  possession  of  the  penguins  "  frontispiece 

To  face  p. 

An  angry  Adelie  2 

Dozing  4 

Waking  up,  stretching,  and  yawning  4 

Pack-ice  8 

Heavy  seat  in  the  autumn  8 

"  throw  up  masses  of  ice"  10 

"  which  are  frozen  into  a  compact  mass  "  10 

"  and  later,  form  the  beautiful  terraces  of  the  ice- foot "  1 4 

Penguins  at  the  rookery  14 

In  the  foreground  a  mated  pair  have  begun  to  build  20 

The  rookery  beginning  to  Jill  up 

"  The  hens  would  keep  up  this  peck-pecking  hour  after 

hour'"  24 

An  affectionate  couple  24 
"  Side  by  side  .  .  .  nests  of  very  big  stones  and  nests 

of  very  small  stones  "  26 

On  the  march  to  the  rookery  28 

vii 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

1o  face  p- 

Part  of  the  line  of  approaching  birds,  several  miles 

in  length 

Arriving  at  the  rookery  32,  34 

aa 

Adelies  arriving 

A  cock  carrying  a  stone  to  his  nest 

Several  interesting  things  are  taking  place  here  38 
Three  cocks  in  rivalry 

Two  of  the  cocks  squaring  up  for  battle  40 

Hard  at  it  42 

The  end  of  the  battle  42 
The  proposal 

Cocks  fighting  for  hens  46,  48 

Penguin  on  nest  *° 

Showing  the  position  of  the  two  eggs  50 

An  Adelie  in  "ecstatic"  attitude  50 

Floods  52 

Flooded  54 

A  nest  with  stones  of  mixed  sizes  54 
"  Hour  after  hour  .  .   .    they  fought  again  and  again"     56 

A  nest  on  a  rock  58 
"  One  after  another,  the  rest  of  the  party  followed  him  "      58 

A  joy  ride  60 

A  knot  of  penguins  on  the  ice- foot  62 

An  Adelie  leaping  from  the  water  64 
viii 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

1o  face  p. 

An  Adelie  leaping  four  feet  high  and  ten  feet  long  66 

Jumping  on  to  slippery  ice  68 
"  When  they  succeeded  in  pushing  one  of  their 

number  over,  all   would  crane    their  necks 

over  the  edge"  70 
Diving  flat  into  shallow  water  72,  74,  76,  78 

Adelies  "  porpoising  "  78 

A  perfect  dive  into  deep  water  80 

Sea-leopards  "  lurk  beneath  the  overhanging  ledges  "  82 

A  sea-leopard'1  s  head  84 

A  sea-leopard  10  ft.  6£  in.  long  86 

A  young  sea-leopard  on  sea-iee  86 
"  With  graceful  arching  of  his  neck,  appeared  to 

assure  her  of  his  readiness  to  take  charge ""  88 

"  The  chicks  began  to  appear""  90 

An  Adelie  being  side  90 

Method  of  feeding  the  young  92 

Profile  of  an  Adelie  chick  94 

A  task  becoming  impossible  96 

Adelie  with  chick  twelve  days  old  98 

A  couple  with  their  chicks  100 
Adelie  penguins  have  a  strong  love  of  climbing 

for  its  own  sake  102 
Adelies  on  the  ice-foot  104,  106,  108 

ix 


INTRODUCTION 

The  reason  for  this  state  of  things  is  that  there  is 
no  food  of  any  description  to  be  had  inland.  Ages 
back,  a  different  state  of  things  existed :  tropical 
forests  abounded,  and  at  one  time,  the  seals  ran 
about  on  shore  like  dogs.  As  conditions  changed, 
these  latter  had  to  take  to  the  sea  for  food,  with  the 
result  that  their  four  legs,  in  course  of  time,  gave 
place  to  wide  paddles  or  "  flippers,"  as  the  penguins' 
wings  have  done,  so  that  at  length  they  became 
true  inhabitants  of  the  sea. 

Were  the  Sea-Leopards*  (the  Adelies'  worst 
enemy)  to  take  to  the  land  again,  there  would  be  a 
speedy  end  to  all  the  southern  penguin  rookeries. 
As  these,  however,  are  inhabited  only  during  four 
and  a  half  months  of  the  year,  the  advantage  to 
the  seals  in  growing  legs  again  would  not  be  great 
enough  to  influence  evolution  in  that  direction.  At 
the  same  time,  I  wonder  very  much  that  the  sea- 
leopards,  who  can  squirm  along  at  a  fair  pace 
on  land,  have  not  crawled  up  the  few  yards  of  ice- 
foot intervening  between  the  water  and  some  of 
the  rookeries,  as,  even  if  they  could  not  catch 
the  old  birds,  they  would  reap  a  rich  harvest  among 
the  chicks  when  these  are  hatched.  Fortunately 
however  they  never  do  this. 

*  Sea-Leopard  =  Stenorhinchus  leptonyx. 
2 


FIG.   1.     AX  AXGKY  ADKLIE 


(I' a  fie  3) 


INTRODUCTION 

The  wings  of  Ad^lies,  like  those  of  the  other 
penguins,  have  taken  the  form  of  paddles,  and  are 
covered  with  very  fine  scale-like  feathers.  Their 
legs  being  very  short,  they  walk  slowly,  with  a 
waddling  gait,  but  can  travel  at  a  fair  pace  over 
snow  or  ice  by  falling  forward  on  to  their  breasts, 
and  propelling  themselves  with  all  four  limbs. 

To  continue  the  sketch,  I  quote  two  other 
writers : 

M.  Racovitza,  of  the  "  Belgica  "  expedition,  well 
describes  them  as  follows  : 

"  Imagine  a  little  man,  standing  erect,  provided 
with  two  broad  paddles  instead  of  arms,  with  head 
small  in  comparison  with  the  plump  stout  body ; 
imagine  this  creature  with  his  back  covered  with  a 
black  coat  .  .  .  tapering  behind  to  a  pointed  tail 
that  drags  on  the  ground,  and  adorned  in  front 
with  a  glossy  white  breast-plate.  Have  this  creature 
walk  on  his  two  feet,  and  give  him  at  the  same 
time  a  droll  little  waddle,  and  a  pert  movement 
of  the  head ;  you  have  before  you  something 
irresistibly  attractive  and  comical." 

Dr.  Louis  Gain,  of  the  French  Antarctic  expe- 
dition, gives  us  the  following  description : 

"The  Adelie  penguin  is  a  brave  animal,  and 
rarely  flees  from  danger.  If  it  happens  to  be 
4 


. 


FIG.  2.     DOZING 


~ 


•  .     '., 


Fie.  3.     \VAKIXG  UP,  STRETCHING,  AND  YAM-NINU 


INTRODUCTION 

tormented,  it  faces  its  aggressor  and  ruffles  the 
black  feathers  which  cover  its  back.  Then  it  takes 
a  stand  for  combat,  the  body  straight,  the  animal 
erect,  the  beak  in  the  air,  the  wings  extended,  not 
losing  sight  of  its  enemy. 

"  It  then  makes  a  sort  of  purring,  a  muffled 
grumbling,  to  show  that  it  is  not  satisfied,  and  has 
not  lost  a  bit  of  its  firm  resolution  to  defend  itself. 
In  this  guarded  position  it  stays  on  the  spot ;  some- 
times it  retreats,  and  lying  flat  on  the  ground, 
pushes  itself  along  with  all  the  force  of  its  claws  and 
wings.  Should  it  be  overtaken,  instead  of  trying 
to  increase  its  speed,  it  stops,  backs  up  again  to 
face  anew  the  peril,  and  returns  to  its  position 
of  combat.  Sometimes  it  takes  the  offensive, 
throws  itself  upon  its  aggressor,  whom  it  punishes 
with  blows  of  its  beak  and  wings." 

The  Adelie  penguin  is  excessively  curious,  taking 
great  pains  to  inspect  any  strange  object  he  may 
see.  When  we  were  waiting  for  the  ship  to  fetch 
us  home,  some  of  us  lived  in  little  tents  which  we 
pitched  on  the  snow  about  fifty  yards  from  the  edge 
of  the  sea.  Parties  of  penguins  from  Cape  Royds 
rookery  frequently  landed  here,  and  almost  in- 
variably the  first  thing  they  did  on  seeing  our  tents, 
was  at  once  to  walk  up  the  slope  and  inspect  these, 

5 


INTRODUCTION 

walking  all  round  them,  and  often  staying  to  doze  by 
them  for  hours.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  seemed  to 
enjoy  our  companionship.  When  you  pass  on  the 
sea-ice  anywhere  near  a  party  of  penguins,  these 
generally  come  up  to  look  at  you,  and  we  had  great 
trouble  to  keep  them  away  from  the  sledge  dogs 
when  these  were  tethered  in  rows  near  the  hut  at 
Cape  Evans.  The  dogs  killed  large  numbers  of 
them  in  consequence,  in  spite  of  all  we  could  do  to 
prevent  this. 

The  Adelies,  as  will  be  seen  in  these  pages,  are 
extremely  brave,  and  though  panic  occasionally 
overtakes  them,  I  have  seen  a  bird  return  time  after 
time  to  attack  a  seaman  who  was  brutally  sending 
it  flying  by  kicks  from  his  sea-boot,  before  I  arrived 
to  interfere.  An  exact  description  of  the  plumage 
of  the  Adelie  penguins  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix, 
as  it  is  more  especially  of  their  habits  that  I  intend 
to  treat  in  this  work. 

Before  describing  these,  and  with  a  view  to  making 
them  more  intelligible  to  the  general  reader,  I  will 
proceed  to  a  short  explanation. 

The  Adelie  penguins  spend  their  summer  and 
bring  forth  their  young  in  the  far  South.  Nesting 
on  the  shores  of  the  Antarctic  continent,  and  on  the 
islands  of  the  Antarctic  seas,  they  are  always  close 
6 


to  the  water,  being  dependent  on  the  sea  for  their 
food,  as  are  all  Antarctic  fauna ;  the  frozen  regions 
inland,  for  all  practical  purposes,  being  barren  of 
both  animal  and  vegetable  life. 

Their  requirements  are  few :  they  seek  no  shelter 
from  the  terrible  Antarctic  gales,  their  rookeries  in 
most  cases  being  in  open  wind-swept  spots.  In  fact, 
three  of  the  four  rookeries  I  visited  were  possibly  in 
the  three  most  windy  regions  of  the  Antarctic.  The 
reason  for  this  is  that  only  wind-swept  places  are  so 
kept  bare  of  snow  that  solid  ground  and  pebbles 
for  making  nests  are  to  be  found. 

When  the  chicks  are  hatched  and  fully  fledged, 
they  are  taught  to  swim,  and  when  this  is  accom- 
plished and  they  can  catch  food  for  themselves,  both 
young  and  old  leave  the  Southern  limits  of  the  sea, 
and  make  their  way  to  the  pack-ice  out  to  the 
northward,  thus  escaping  the  rigors  and  darkness 
of  the  Antarctic  winter,  and  keeping  where  they 
will  find  the  open  water  which  they  need.  For  in 
the  winter  the  seas  where  they  nest  are  completely 
covered  by  a  thick  sheet  of  ice  which  does  not 
break  out  until  early  in  the  following  summer. 
Much  of  this  ice  is  then  borne  northward  by  tide 
and  wind,  and  accumulates  to  form  the  vast  rafts 
of  what  is  called  "  pack-ice,"  many  hundreds  of 

7 


INTRODUCTION 

miles  in  extent,  which  lie  upon  the  surface  of  the 
Antarctic  seas.  (Fig.  4.) 

It  is  to  this  mass  of  floating  sea-ice  that  the 
Adelie  penguins  make  their  way  in  the  autumn, 
but  as  their  further  movements  here  are  at  present 
something  of  a  mystery,  the  question  will  be 
discussed  at  greater  length  presently. 

When  young  and  old  leave  the  rookery  at  the 
end  of  the  breeding  season,  the  new  ice  has  not  yet 
been  formed,  and  their  long  journey  to  the  pack 
has  to  be  made  by  water,  but  they  are  wonderful 
swimmers  and  seem  to  cover  the  hundreds  of  miles 
quite  easily. 

Arrived  on  the  pack,  the  first  year's  birds  remain 
there  for  two  winters.  It  is  not  until  after  their 
first  moult,  the  autumn  following  their  departure 
from  the  rookery,  that  they  grow  the  distinguishing 
mark  of  the  adult,  black  feathers  replacing  the 
white  plumage  which  has  hitherto  covered  the 
throat. 

The  spring  following  this,  and  probably  every 
spring  for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  they  return  South 
to  breed,  performing  their  journey,  very  often,  not 
only  by  water,  but  on  foot  across  many  miles 
of  frozen  sea. 

For  those  birds  who  nest  in  the  southernmost 
8 


FIG.  4.    PACK  ICE  (ON  WHICH  THE  ADELIES  WINTER) 
Two  WEDDELL  SEALS  ARE  SEEN  ON  A  FLOE 


FIG.  5.     HEAVY  SEAS  IN  THE  AUTI:MN 


(Paye  10) 


INTRODUCTION 

rookeries,  such  as  Cape  Crozier,  this  journey  must 
mean  for  them  a  journey  of  at  least  four  hundred 
miles  by  water,  and  an  unknown  but  considerable 
distance  on  foot  over  ice. 

As  I  am  about  to  describe  the  manners  and 
customs  of  Adelie  penguins  at  the  Cape  Adare 
rookery,  I  will  give  a  short  description  of  that  spot. 

Cape  Adare  is  situated  in  lat.  71°  14'  S.  long. 
170°  10'  E.,  and  is  a  neck  of  land  jutting  out  from 
the  sheer  and  ice-bound  foot-hills  of  South  Victoria 
Land  northwards  for  a  distance  of  some  twenty 
miles. 

For  its  whole  length,  the  sides  of  this  Cape 
rise  sheer  out  of  the  sea,  affording  no  foothold 
except  at  the  extreme  end,  where  a  low  beach 
has  been  formed,  nestling  against  the  steep  side  of 
the  cliff  which  here  rises  almost  perpendicularly  to 
a  height  of  over  1000  feet. 

Hurricanes  frequently  sweep  this  beach,  so  that 
snow  never  settles  there  for  long,  and  as  it  is  com- 
posed of  basaltic  material  freely  strewn  with 
rounded  pebbles,  it  forms  a  convenient  nesting  site, 
and  it  was  on  this  spot  that  I  made  the  observations 
set  forth  in  the  following  pages. 

Viewed  before  the  penguins'  arrival  in  the  spring, 
and  after  recent  winds  had  swept  the  last  snowfalls 

9 


INTRODUCTION 

away,  the  rookery  is  seen  to  be  composed  of  a 
series  of  undulations  and  mounds,  or  "  knolls," 
while  several  sheets  of  ice,  varying  in  size  up  to  some 
hundreds  of  yards  in  length  and  one  hundred  yards 
in  width,  cover  lower  lying  ground  where  lakes 
of  thaw  water  form  in  the  summer.  Though 
doubtless  the  ridges  and  knolls  of  the  rookery 
owe  their  origin  mainly  to  geological  phenomena, 
their  contour  has  been  much  added  to  as,  year 
by  year,  the  penguins  have  chosen  the  higher 
eminences  for  their  nests ;  because  their  guano, 
which  thickly  covers  the  higher  ground,  has 
protected  this  from  weathering  and  the  denuding 
effect  of  the  hurricanes  which  pass  over  it  at 
certain  seasons  and  tend  to  carry  away  the  small 
fragments  of  ground  that  have  been  split  up  by  the 
frost. 

The  shores  of  this  beach  are  protected  by  a 
barrier  of  ice-floes  which  are  stranded  there  by  the 
sea  in  the  autumn.  These  floes  become  welded 
together  and  form  the  "ice-foot"  frequently  re- 
ferred to  in  these  pages,  and  photographs  showing 
how  this  is  done  are  seen  on  Figs.  5,  6,  7  and  8. 

At  the  back  of  the  rookery,  nesting  sites  are 
to  be  seen  stretching  up  the  steep  cliff  to  a  height 
of  over  1000  feet,  some  of  them  being  almost 
10 


FIG.  6.     '• .  .  .  THROW  UP  MASSES  OF  ICE, 


FIG.  7.     "...  WHICH  ARE  FROZEN  INTO  A  COMPACT  MASS  AS 
WINTER  APPROACHES" 

(Page  10) 


INTRODUCTION 

inaccessible,  so  difficult  is  the  climb  which  the 
penguins  have  made  to  reach  them. 

On  Duke  of  York  Island,  some  twenty  miles 
south  of  the  Cape  Adare  rookery,  another  breeding- 
place  has  been  made.  This  is  a  small  colony  only, 
as  might  be  expected.  Indeed  it  is  difficult  to  see 
why  the  penguins  chose  this  place  at  all  whilst  room 
still  exists  at  the  bigger  rookery,  because  Duke  of 
York  Island,  until  late  in  the  season,  is  cut  off  from 
open  water  by  many  miles  of  sea-ice,  so  that  with 
the  exception  of  an  occasional  tide  crack,  or  seals' 
blow  holes,  the  birds  of  that  rookery  have  no  means 
of  getting  food  except  by  making  a  long  journey  on 
foot.  When  the  arrivals  were  streaming  up  to  Cape 
Adare  many  were  seen  to  pass  by,  making  in  a 
straight  line  for  Duke  of  York  Island,  and  so  adding 
another  twenty  miles  on  foot  to  the  journey  they 
had  already  accomplished. 

When  the  time  arrived  for  the  birds  to  feed,  some 
open  leads  had  formed  about  half  way  across  the 
bay,  and  those  of  the  Duke  of  York  colony  were  to 
be  seen  streaming  over  the  ice  for  many  miles  on 
their  way  between  the  water  and  their  nests.  They 
seem  to  think  nothing  of  long  journeys,  however, 
as  in  the  early  season,  when  unbroken  sea-ice  in- 
tervened between  the  two  rookeries,  parties  of 

11 


INTRODUCTION 

penguins  from  Cape  Adare  actually  used  to  march 
out  and  meet  their  Duke  of  York  friends  half  way 
over,  presumably  for  the  pleasure  of  a  chat. 

To  realize  what  this  meant,  we  must  remember  that 
an  Adelie  penguin's  eyes  being  only  about  twelve 
inches  above  the  ground  when  on  the  march,  his 
horizon  is  only  one  mile  distant.  Thus  from  Cape 
Adare  he  could  just  see  the  top  of  the  mountain  on 
Duke  of  York  Island  peeping  above  the  horizon  on 
the  dearest  day.  In  anything  like  thick  weather  he 
could  not  see  it  at  all,  and  probably  he  had  never 
been  there.  So  in  the  first  place,  what  was  it  that 
impelled  him  to  go  on  this  long  journey  to  meet  his 
friends,  and  when  so  impelled,  what  instinct  pointed 
out  the  :way  ?  This  of  course  merely  brings  us  to 
the  old  question  of  migratory  instinct,  but  in  the 
case  of  the  penguin,  its  horizon  is  so  very  short  that 
it  is  quite  evident  he  possesses  a  special  sense  of 
direction,  in  addition  to  the  special  sense  which 
urged  him  to  go  and  meet  the  Duke  of  York  Island 
contingent,  and  I  may  here  remark  that  when  we 
were  returning  to  New  Zealand  in  the  summer  of 
1913,  we  passed  troops  of  penguins  swimming  in  the 
open  sea  far  out  of  sight  of  land, — an  unanswerable 
reply  to  those  naturalists  who  still  maintain  that 
migrating  birds  must  rely  upon  their  eyes  for 
12 


INTRODUCTION 


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INTRODUCTION 


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FIG.  8. 


.  .  AND  LATER,  FORM  THE  BEAUTIFUL  TERRACES  OF 
THE  ICE-FOOT" 


Fie.  9.     PENGUINS  AT  THE  KOOKERV 


(f'aye  18) 


INTRODUCTION 

guidance,  and  this  remark  applies  equally  to  the 
penguins  we  found  on  the  northern  limits  of  the 
pack-ice,  some  five  hundred  miles  from  the  rookeries 
to  which  they  would  repair  the  following  year. 

The  exact  whereabouts  of  the  Adelie  penguins 
during  the  winter  months  has  been  much  discussed 
by  different  writers.  It  is  agreed  that  they  repair 
to  the  pack-ice,  but  our  knowledge  of  the  move- 
ments of  this  pack  is  very  vague  at  the  present 
time,  and  so  unfortunately  I  can  give  but  a  rough 
idea  of  the  subject. 

I  have  collected  and  noted  down  the  latest 
evidence  for  the  benefit  of  the  zoologists  of  future 
expeditions  who  may  wish  to  investigate  the  matter 
further,  and  1  am  indebted  for  nearly  the  whole  of 
it  to  Commander  Harry  L.  Pennell,  R.N.,  com- 
mander of  the  Terra  Nova  from  1910  to  1913, 
who  kindly  drew  up  for  me  Tables  A  and  B  (see 
pp.  13  and  14). 

Probably  the  information  which  more  nearly  con- 
cerns the  penguins  of  Cape  Adare  rookery  will  be 
found  in  Table  A.  The  birds  from  Cape  Crozier 
and  Cape  Royds  rookeries  must  have  some  four 
hundred  miles  further  to  travel  when  they  go  North 
in  the  autumn  than  those  at  Cape  Adare. 


15 


PART  I 
THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

Diary  from  October  13  to  November  3,  describing  the 
arrival  of  the  Adelie  penguins  at  the  rookery,  and 
habits  during  the  periods  of  mating  and  building. 

THE  first  Adelie  penguins  arrived  at  the  Ridley 
Beach  rookery,  Cape  Adare,  on  October  13.  A 
blizzard  came  on  then,  with  thick  drift  which 
prevented  any  observations  being  made.  The 
next  day,  when  this  subsided,  there  were  no  pen- 
guins to  be  seen. 

On  October  15  two  of  them  were  loitering  about 
the  beach.  During  the  forenoon  they  were  separate, 
but  in  the  afternoon  they  kept  company,  and 
walked  over  to  the  south-east  corner  of  the  rookery 
under  the  cliff  of  Cape  Adare,  where  they  were 
sheltered  from  the  cold  breeze. 

On  October  16  at  11  A.M.  there  were  about 
twenty  penguins  arrived.  Several  came  singly, 
and  one  little  party  of  three  came  up  together. 
On  arrival  they  wandered  about  by  themselves, 
and  stood  or  walked  about  the  beach,  giving  one 

B  17 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

the  impression  of  simply  hanging  about,  waiting 
for  something  to  "  turn  up." 

By  4  P.M.  there  must  have  been  close  on  a 
hundred  penguins  at  the  rookery.  It  was  a  calm 
day  and  misty,  so  that  I  could  not  see  far  out 
across  the  sea-ice,  but  so  far  it  was  evident  that 
the  birds  were  not  arriving  in  batches,  but  just 
dribbling  in.  They  were  then  for  the  most  part 
squatting  about  the  rookery,  well  scattered,  some 
solitary,  others  in  groups,  and  facing  in  all  direc- 
tions. (Fig.  9.)  They  were  not  on  the  promi- 
nences where  the  nesting  sites  are,  but  in  the 
hollows  and  on  the  snow  of  the  frozen  lakes. 
There  was  no  sign  of  love-making  or  any  activity 
whatever.  All  were  in  fine  plumage  and  con- 
dition. 

During  the  night  of  October  16  the  number  of 
penguins  increased  greatly,  and  on  the  morning  of 
the  17th  there  was  a  thin  sprinkling  scattered  over 
the  rookery.  (Fig.  11.)  A  few  were  in  pairs  or 
threes,  but  more  in  groups  of  a  dozen  or  more,  and 
all  the  birds  were  very  phlegmatic,  many  of  them 
lying  on  their  breasts,  with  beaks  outstretched, 
apparently  asleep,  and  nearly  all,  as  yesterday,  in 
the  hollows,  though  there  was  no  wind,  and  away 
from  the  nesting  sites.  They  were  very  quiet. 
18 


Probably  they  were  fatigued  after  their  journey ; 
perhaps  also  they  were  waiting  the  stimulation  of  a 
greater  crowd  before  starting  their  breeding  opera- 
tions. As  the  guano-covered  ridges,  on  which  the 
old  nests  are,  were  fairly  soft  and  the  pebbles 
loose,  they  were  not  waiting  for  higher  tempera- 
tures in  order  to  get  to  work. 

During  October  17  the  arrivals  became  gradually 
more  frequent.  They  were  dribbling  up  from  the 
sea-ice  at  the  north-end  of  the  beach,  and  soon 
made  a  well-worn  track  up  the  ice-foot,  whilst  a 
long  line  of  birds  approaching  in  single  file,  with 
some  gaps,  extended  to  the  horizon  in  a  northerly 
direction. 

During  the  day  I  noticed  some  penguins  taking 
possession  of  old  nests  on  the  ridges.  These  mostly 
squatted  in  the  nests  without  any  attempt  at 
repairing  them  or  rearrangement  of  any  sort. 
Afterwards  I  found  that  they  were  unmated  hens 
waiting  for  mates  to  come  to  them,  and  that  this 
was  a  very  common  custom  among  them.  ( Fig.  10. ) 
If  two  occupied  nests  within  reach  of  one  another 
they  would  stretch  out  their  necks  and  peck  at 
each  other.  Their  endeavour  seemed  to  be  to  peck 
each  other's  tongue,  and  this  they  frequently  did, 
but  generally  struck  the  soft  parts  round  the  margin 

19 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

of  the  bills,  which  often  became  a  good  deal  swollen 
in  consequence.  Often  also  their  beaks  would 
become  interlocked.  They  would  keep  up  this 
peck-pecking  hour  after  hour  in  a  most  relentless 
fashion.  (Fig.  12.)  On  one  occasion  I  saw  a  hen 
succeed  in  driving  another  off  one  of  the  old  nests 
which  she  occupied.  The  vanquished  one  squatted 
on  the  ground  a  few  yards  away,  with  rumpled 
feathers  and  "  huffy  "  appearance,  whilst  the  other 
walked  on  to  the  nest  and  assumed  the  "  ecstatic  " 
attitude  (page  46).  Nothing  but  animosity  could 
have  induced  this  act,  as  thousands  of  old  unoccu- 
pied nests  lay  all  around. 

About  9  P.M.  a  light  snowstorm  came  on, 
and  those  few  birds  who  had  taken  possession 
of  nests,  left  them,  and  all  now  lay  in  the  hollows, 
nestling  into  the  fine  drift  which  soon  covered  the 
ground  to  the  extent  of  a  few  inches.  A  group  of 
about  a  dozen  penguins  which  arrived  near  the  ice- 
foot in  the  morning,  halted  on  the  sea-ice  without 
ascending  the  little  slope  leading  to  the  rookery, 
and  stayed  there  all  day. 

With  the  few  exceptions  I  have  noted  above,  all 
the  birds  that  had  arrived  so  far  either  were 
much  fatigued,  or  else  they  realized  that  they  had 
come  a  little  too  soon  and  were  waiting  for  some 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

psychological  moment  to  arrive,  for  they  were  all 
strangely  quiet  and  inactive. 

On  October  18  the  weather  cleared  and  a 
fair  number  of  penguins  started  to  build  their 
nests.  The  great  majority  however,  apparently 
resting,  still  sat  about.  Those  that  built  took 
their  stones  from  old  nests,  as  at  present  so  many 
of  these  lay  unoccupied.  They  made  quite  large 
nests,  some  inches  high  at  the  sides,  with  a  com- 
fortable hollow  in  the  middle  to  sit  in.  The  stone 
carrying  (Fig.  20)  was  done  by  the  male  birds,  the 
hens  keeping  continual  guard  over  the  nest,  as 
otherwise  the  pair  would  have  been  robbed  of  the 
fruits  of  their  labours  as  fast  as  they  were  acquired. 

As  I  strolled  through  the  rookery,  most  of 
the  birds  took  little  or  no  notice  of  me.  Some, 
however,  swore  at  me  very  savagely,  and  one 
infuriated  penguin  rushed  at  me  from  a  distance  of 
some  ten  yards,  seizing  the  leg  of  my  wind-proof 
trousers.  In  the  morning  quite  a  large  number  lay 
down  on  the  sea-ice,  a  few  yards  short  of  the 
rookery,  content  apparently  to  have  got  so  far. 
They  lay  there  all  day,  motionless  on  there  breasts, 
with  their  chins  outstretched  on  the  snow. 

By  the  evening  of  October  18  most  of  the 
penguins  had  gathered  in  little  groups  on  the  nest- 

21 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

covered  eminences,  but  there  was  at  that  time 
ample  room  for  all,  there  being  only  about  three 
or  four  thousand  arrived.  Although  there  were 
several  open  water  holes  against  bergs  frozen  into 
the  sea-ice  some  half  mile  or  so  away,  not  a  single 
bird  attempted  to  get  food. 

At  6  P.M.  the  whole  rookery  appeared  to 
sleep,  and  the  ceaseless  chattering  of  the  past 
hours  gave  place  to  a  dead  and  impressive  silence, 
though  here  and  there  an  industrious  little  bird 
might  be  seen  busily  fetching  stone  after  stone 
to  his  nest. 

At  that  date  it  was  deeply  dusk  at  midnight, 
though  the  sun  was  very  quickly  rising  in  altitude, 
and  continuous  daylight  would  soon  overtake  us. 

By  the  morning  of  October  19  there  had  been 
a  good  many  more  arrivals,  but  the  rookery  was 
not  yet  more  than  one-twentieth  part  full.  All 
the  birds  were  fasting  absolutely.  Nest  building 
was  now  in  full  swing,  and  the  whole  place  waking 
up  to  activity.  Most  of  the  pebbles  for  the  new 
nests  were  being  taken  from  old  nests,  but  a  great 
deal  of  robbery  went  on  nevertheless.  Depredators 
when  caught  were  driven  furiously  away,  and 
occasionally  chased  for  some  distance,  and  it  was 
curious  to  see  the  difference  in  the  appearance 
22 


t     •  ';..,>:  ^i  „$, 

nf   I'l'n.'/j    J 

.  :   '  '=  i 


-  , 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

between  the  fleeing  thief  and  his  pursuer.  As  the 
former  raced  and  ducked  about  among  the  nests, 
doubling  on  his  tracks,  and  trying  by  every  means 
to  get  lost  in  the  crowd  and  so  rid  himself  of 
his  pursuer,  his  feathers  lay  close  back  on  his 
skin,  giving  him  a  sleek  look  which  made  him 
appear  half  the  size  of  the  irate  nest-holder  who 
sought  to  catch  him,  with  feathers  ruffled  in  indig- 
nation. This  at  first  led  me  to  think  that  the  hens 
were  larger  than  the  cocks,  as  it  was  generally  the 
hen  who  was  at  home,  and  the  cock  who  was  after 
the  stones,  but  later  I  found  that  sex  makes 
absolutely  no  difference  in  the  size  of  the  birds, 
or  indeed  in  their  appearance  at  all,  as  seen  by  the 
human  eye.  After  mating,  their  behaviour  as  well 
as  various  outward  signs  serve  to  distinguish  male 
from  female.  Besides  this  certain  differences  in 
their  habits,  which  I  will  describe  in  another 
place,  are  to  be  noted. 

The  consciousness  of  guilt,  however,  always 
makes  a  penguin  smooth  his  feathers  and  look 
small,  whilst  indignation  has  the  opposite  effect. 
Often  when  observing  a  knoll  crowded  with 
nesting  penguins,  I  have  seen  an  apparently  under- 
sized individual  slipping  quietly  along  among  the 
nests,  and  always  by  his  subsequent  proceedings  he 

23 


ADfiLIE  PENGUINS 

has  turned  out  to  be  a  robber  on  the  hunt  for 
his  neighbours1  stones.  The  others,  too,  seemed  to 
know  it,  and  would  have  a  peck  at  him  as  he  passed 
them. 

At  last  he  would  find  a  hen  seated  unwarily 
on  her  nest,  slide  up  behind  her,  deftly  and  silently 
grab  a  stone,  and  run  off  triumphantly  with  it 
to  his  mate  who  was  busily  arranging  her  own 
home.  Time  after  time  he  would  return  to  the 
same  spot,  the  poor  depredated  nest-holder  being 
quite  oblivious  of  the  fact  that  the  side  of  her  nest 
which  lay  behind  her  was  slowly  but  surely  vanish- 
ing stone  by  stone. 

Here  could  be  seen  how  much  individual  character 
makes  for  success  or  failure  in  the  efforts  of  the 
penguins  to  produce  and  rear  their  offspring. 
There  are  vigilant  birds,  always  alert,  who  seem 
never  to  get  robbed  or  molested  in  any  way :  these 
have  big  high  nests,  made  with  piles  of  stones. 
Others  are  unwary  and  get  huffed  as  a  result. 
There  are  a  few  even  who,  from  weakness  of 
character,  actually  allow  stronger  natured  and 
more  aggressive  neighbours  to  rob  them  under 
their  very  eyes. 

In  speaking  of  the  robbery  which  is  such  a 
feature  of  the  rookery  during  nest  building,  special 
24 


FIG.  12.    li  THE  HENS  WOULD  KEEP  UP  THIS  PECK-PECKING 

HOUR    AFTER    HOUR*' 


• 


FIG.  13.     AN  AFFECTIONATE  COLPLE 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

note  must  be  made  of  the  fact  that  violence  is 
never  under  any  circumstances  resorted  to  by  the 
thieves.  When  detected,  these  invariably  beat  a 
retreat,  and  offer  not  the  least  resistance  to  the 
drastic  punishment  they  receive  if  they  are  caught 
by  their  indignant  pursuers.  The  only  disputes 
that  ever  take  place  over  the  question  of  property 
are  on  the  rare  occasions  when  a  bona-fide  mis- 
understanding arises  over  the  possession  of  a  nest. 
These  must  be  very  rare  indeed,  as  only  on  one 
occasion  have  I  seen  such  a  quarrel  take  place. 
The  original  nesting  sites  being,  as  I  will  show, 
chosen  by  the  hens,  it  is  the  lady,  in  every  case, 
who  is  the  cause  of  the  battle,  and  when  she  is 
won  her  scoop  goes  with  her  to  the  victor. 

As  I  grew  to  know  these  birds  from  continued 
observation,  it  was  surprising  and  interesting  to 
note  how  much  they  differed  in  character,  though 
the  weaker-minded  who  would  actually  allow  them- 
selves to  be  robbed,  were  few  and  far  between,  as 
might  be  expected.  Few,  if  any,  of  these  ever 
could  succeed  in  hatching  their  young  and  winning 
them  through  to  the  feathered  stage. 

When  starting  to  make  her  nest,  the  usual  pro- 
cedure is  for  the  hen  to  squat  on  the  ground  for 
some  time,  probably  to  thaw  it,  then  working  with 

25 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

her  claws  to  scratch  away  at  the  material  beneath 
her,  shooting  out  the  rubble  behind  her.  As  she 
does  this  she  shifts  her  position  in  a  circular  direc- 
tion until  she  has  scraped  out  a  round  hollow. 
Then  the  cock  brings  stones,  performing  journey 
after  journey,  returning  each  time  with  one  pebble 
in  his  beak  which  he  deposits  in  front  of  the  hen 
who  places  it  in  position. 

Sometimes  the  hollow  is  lined  with  a  neat  pave- 
ment of  stones  placed  side  by  side,  one  layer  deep, 
on  which  the  hen  squats,  afterwards  building  up 
the  sides  around  her.  At  other  times  the  scoop 
would  be  filled  up  indiscriminately  by  a  heap  of 
pebbles  on  which  the  hen  then  sat,  working  herself 
down  into  a  hollow  in  the  middle. 

Individuals  differ,  not  only  in  their  building 
methods,  but  also  in  the  size  of  the  stones  they 
select.  Side  by  side  may  be  seen  a  nest  composed 
wholly  of  very  big  stones,  so  large  that  it  is  a 
matter  for  wonder  how  the  birds  can  carry  them, 
and  another  nest  of  quite  small  stones.  (Fig.  14.) 

Different  couples  seem  to  vary  much  in  character 
or  mood.  Some  can  be  seen  quarrelling  violently, 
whilst  others  appear  most  affectionate,  and  the 
tender  politeness  of  some  of  these  latter  toward 
one  another  is  very  pretty  to  see.  (Fig.  13.) 
26 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

I  may  here  mention  that  the  temperatures  were 
rising  considerably  by  October  19,  ranging  about 
zero  F. 

During  October  20  the  stream  of  arrivals  was 
incessant.  Some  mingled  at  once  with  the  crowd, 
others  lay  in  batches  on  the  sea-ice  a  few  yards 
short  of  the  rookery,  content  to  have  got  so  far, 
and  evidently  feeling  the  need  for  rest  after  their 
long  journey  from  the  pack.  The  greater  part  of 
this  journey  was  doubtless  performed  by  swimming, 
as  they  crossed  open  water,  but  I  think  that  much 
of  it  must  have  been  done  on  foot  over  many  miles 
of  sea-ice,  to  account  for  the  fatigue  of  many  of  them. 

Their  swimming  I  will  describe  later.  On  the 
ice  they  have  two  modes  of  progression.  The  first 
is  simple  walking.  Their  legs  being  very  short, 
their  stride  amounts  at  most  to  four  inches. 
Their  rate  of  stepping  averages  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  steps  per  minute  when  on  the  march. 

Their  second  mode  of  progression  is  "  toboggan- 
ing." When  wearied  by  walking  or  when  the 
surface  is  particularly  suitable,  they  fall  forward  on 
to  their  white  breasts,  smooth  and  shimmering  with 
a  beautiful  metallic  lustre  in  the  sunlight,  and  push 
themselves  along  by  alternate  powerful  little  strokes 
of  their  legs  behind  them. 

27 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

When  quietly  on  the  march,  both  walking  and 
tobogganing  produce  the  same  rate  of  progression, 
so  that  the  string  of  arriving  birds,  tailing  out  in  a 
long  line  as  far  as  the  horizon,  appears  as  a  well- 
ordered  procession.  I  walked  out  a  mile  or  so 
along  this  line,  standing  for  some  time  watching  it 
tail  past  me  and  taking  the  photographs  with  which 
I  have  illustrated  the  scene.  Most  of  the  little 
creatures  seemed  much  out  of  breath,  their  wheezy 
respiration  being  distinctly  heard. 

First  would  pass  a  string  of  them  walking,  then 
a  dozen  or  so  tobogganing.  (Fig.  15.)  Suddenly 
those  that  walked  would  flop  on  to  their  breasts 
and  start  tobogganing,  and  conversely  strings  of 
tobogganers  would  as  suddenly  pop  up  on  to  their 
feet  and  start  walking.  In  this  way  they  relieved 
the  monotony  of  their  march,  and  gave  periodical 
rest  to  different  groups  of  muscles  and  nerve- 
centres. 

The  surface  of  the  snow  on  the  sea-ice  varied 
continually,  and  over  any  very  smooth  patches  the 
pedestrians  almost  invariably  started  to  toboggan, 
whilst  over  "  bad  going "  they  all  had  perforce  to 
walk. 

Figs.  16,  17,  18  and  19  present  some  idea  of 
the  procession  of  these  thousands  on  thousands  of 
28 


* 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

penguins  as  day  after  day  they  passed  into  the 
rookery. 

When  tobogganing,  turning  to  one  side  or  the 
other  is  done  with  one  or  more  strokes  of  the 
opposite  flipper.  When  fleeing  or  chasing,  both 
flippers  as  well  as  both  feet  are  used  in  propulsion, 
and  over  most  surfaces  tobogganing  is  thus  their 
fastest  mode  of  progression,  but  when  going  at  full 
tilt  it  is  also  the  most  exhausting,  and  after  a  short 
spurt  in  this  way  they  invariably  return  to  the 
walking  position. 

By  October  20  many  of  the  nests  were  complete, 
and  the  hens  sat  in  them,  though  no  eggs  were  to 
be  seen  yet.  In  the  middle  of  one  of  the  frozen 
lakes  rose  a  little  island,  well  suited  for  nesting 
except  for  the  fact  that  later  in  the  season,  prob- 
ably about  the  time  when  the  young  chicks  were 
hatched,  the  lake  would  be  thawed  and  the  approach 
to  the  island  only  to  be  accomplished  through 
about  six  inches  or  more  of  dirty  water  and  ooze. 
Until  then,  however,  the  surface  of  the  lake  would 
remain  frozen,  and  was  at  this  time  covered  with 
snow. 

Not  a  penguin  attempted  to  build  its  nest  on 
this  island,  though  many  passed  it  or  walked  over 
it  in  crossing  the  lake.  How  did  they  realize  that 

29 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

later  on  they  would  get  dirty  every  time  they 
journeyed  to  or  from  the  spot  ? 

Not  far  from  this  island  another  mound  rose 
from  the  lake,  but  this  was  connected  with  the 
"  mainland  "  by  a  narrow  neck  of  guano-covered 
pebbles.  This  mound  was  covered  with  nests, 
showing  that  the  birds  understood  this  place  could 
always  be  reached  over  dry  land.  Surely  this  was 
well  worth  remarking. 

There  was  a  part  of  the  ice-foot  on  the  south 
side  of  the  rookery  where  a  track  worn  by  many 
ascending  penguins  could  be  seen,  leading  from  the 
sea-ice  on  to  the  beach.  The  place  was  steep  and 
the  ice  slippery,  and,  in  fact,  the  track  led  straight 
up  a  most  difficult  ascent.  Not  ten  yards  from 
this  well-worn  track  a  perfectly  easy  slope  led  up 
from  the  sea-ice  to  the  rookery.  The  tracks  in  the 
freshly  fallen  snow  showed  that  only  one  penguin 
had  gone  up  this  way.  Presumably  the  first 
arrival  in  that  place  had  taken  the  difficult  path, 
and  all  subsequent  arrivals  blindly  followed  in  his 
tracks,  whilst  only  one  had  had  the  good  luck  or 
independence  to  choose  the  easier  way. 

On  October  21  many  thousands  of  penguins 
arrived  from  the  northerly  direction,  and  poured 
on  to  the  beach  in  a  continuous  stream,  the  snaky 
30 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

line  of  arrivals  extending  unbroken  across  the  sea- 
ice  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 

A  great  many  now  started  to  climb  the  heights 
up  the  precipitous  side  of  Cape  Adare  and  to  build 
their  nests  as  far  as  the  summit,  a  height  of  some 
1000  feet,  although  there  was  still  room  for  many 
thousand  more  down  below.  What  could  be  their 
object,  considering  the  wearisome  journeys  they 
would  have  to  make  to  feed  their  young,  it  is 
impossible  to  say.  It  might  be  the  result  of  the 
same  spirit  which  made  them  spread  out  in  little 
scattered  groups  over  the  rookery  when  only  a  few 
had  arrived,  and  that  they  prefer  wider  room,  only 
putting  up  with  the  greater  crowding  which  ensues 
later  as  a  necessary  evil.  There  is,  however,  another 
explanation  which  I  wrill  discuss  in  another  place. 

At  9  P.M.  it  was  getting  dusk,  and  the  rookery 
comparatively  silent,  although  on  some  of  the 
knolls  two  or  three  birds  might  be  seen  still  busily 
working,  toddling  to  and  fro  fetching  stones.  The 
other  thousands  lay  at  rest,  their  white  breasts  flat 
on  the  ground,  and  only  their  black  beaks  and 
heads  visible  as  they  lay  with  their  chins  stretched 
forward  on  the  ground,  whilst  in  place  of  the 
massed  discord  of  clamour  heard  during  the  day, 
the  separate  voices  of  some  of  the  busy  ones 

31 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

were  distinct.  A  fine  powdering  of  snow  was 
falling. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  the  number 
of  penguins  that  poured  into  the  rookery  during 
the  following  day.  There  was  no  evidence  that  any 
pairing  had  taken  place  on  or  before  the  march,  and 
the  birds  all  had  the  appearance  of  being  quite 
independent. 

Far  away  from  the  beach  the  line  had  become 
thicker,  and  was  no  longer  in  single  file,  the 
progress  of  the  birds  being  slow  and  steady,  but 
when  within  half  a  mile  or  so  from  the  beach, 
excitement  seemed  to  take  possession  of  them,  and 
they  would  break  into  a  run,  hastening  over  the  re- 
maining distance,  the  line  now  being  a  thin  one, 
with  slight  curves  in  it,  each  bird  running,  with 
wide  gait,  and  outstretched  flippers  working  away 
in  unison  with  its  little  legs.  In  fact,  the  whole 
air  of  the  line  at  this  time  was  that  of  a  school- 
treat  arrived  in  sight  of  its  playing-fields,  and 
breaking  into  a  run  in  its  eagerness  to  get  there. 

Arrived  at  the  rookery,  and  plunged  suddenly 
amidst  the  din  of  that  squalling,  fighting,  struggling 
crowd,  the  contrast  with  the  dead  silence  and 
loneliness  of  the  pack-ice  they  had  so  recently  left, 
was  as  great  a  one  as  can  well  be  imagined ;  yet 
32 


:?*•• 


HHI 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

once  there,  the  birds  seemed  collected  and  at  home. 
This  was  a  matter  of  surprise  to  me  then,  but  I 
remember  now  my  own  sensations  on  arriving  home 
after  my  life  in  the  Antarctic,  and  that  I  felt  only 
slightly  the  sudden  return  to  the  bustle  of  civilization. 

Our  presence  among  them  made  little  or  no 
difference  to  the  penguins.  When  we  passed  them 
closely  they  would  bridle  up  and  swear  or  even 
run  at  us  and  peck  at  our  legs  or  batter  them  with 
their  flippers,  but  unless  their  nesting  operations 
were  interfered  with  this  attack  was  short-lived, 
and  the  next  moment  the  birds  would  seem  to 
forget  our  very  existence.  If  I  walked  by  the  side 
of  a  long,  nest-covered  ridge,  a  low  growl  arose 
from  every  bird  as  I  passed  it,  and  the  massed 
sound,  gathering  in  front  and  dying  away  behind 
as  I  advanced,  reminded  me  forcibly  of  the  sound 
of  the  crowds  on  the  towing-path  at  the  'Varsity 
boatrace  as  the  crews  pass  up  the  river. 

Walking  actually  among  the  nests,  your  temper 
is  tried  sorely,  as  every  bird  within  reach  has 
a  peck  at  your  legs,  and  occasionally  a  cock 
attacks  you  bravely,  battering  you  with  his  little 
flippers  in  a  manner  ludicrous  at  first  but  aggravat- 
ing after  a  time,  as  the  operation  is  painful  and 
severe  enough  to  leave  bruises  behind  it,  and 

c  33 


ADfiLIE  PENGUINS 

naturally  this  begins  to  pall.  The  courage  of 
these  little  birds  is  most  remarkable  and  ad- 
mirable. 

Our  hut,  being  built  on  the  rookery,  could  only 
be  approached  through  crowds  of  penguins.  Those 
that  nested  near  us  seemed  quickly  to  become  used 
to  us  and  to  take  less  notice  of  us  than  those 
farther  off.  One  thing,  however,  terrified  them 
pitiably.  We  had  to  fetch  ice  for  our  water 
from  some  stranded  floes  on  the  ice-foot,  and 
this  we  did  in  a  little  sledge.  As  we  hauled 
this  rattling  over  the  pebbly  rookery  it  made 
a  good  deal  of  noise,  and  in  its  path  nests  were 
deserted,  the  occupants  fleeing  in  the  greatest  con- 
fusion, a  clear  road  being  left  for  the  sledge,  whilst 
on  either  side  a  line  of  penguins  was  seen  retreat- 
ing in  the  utmost  terror.  After  about  a  minute, 
they  returned  to  their  places  and  seemed  to 
forget  the  incident,  but  we  were  very  sorry  to 
frighten  them  in  this  way,  as  we  endeavoured  to 
live  at  peace  with  them  and  to  molest  them  as  little 
as  possible,  and  we  feared  that  later  on  eggs  might 
be  spilt  from  the  nests  and  broken.  As  time  went 
on,  those  on  the  route  of  the  sledge  became 
accustomed  even  to  this,  and  we  were  able  to 
choose  a  course  which  cleared  their  nests. 
34 


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9    GO 
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THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

Although  squabbles  and  encounters  had  been 
frequent  since  their  arrival  in  any  numbers,  it  now 
became  manifest  that  there  were  two  very  different 
types  of  battle ;  first,  the  ordinary  quarrelling  con- 
sequent on  disputes  over  nests  and  the  robbery  of 
stones  from  these,  and  secondly,  the  battles  between 
cocks  who  fought  for  the  hens.  These  last  were 
more  earnest  and  severe,  and  were  carried  to  a 
finish,  whereas  the  first  named  rarely  proceeded  to 
extremes. 

In  regard  to  the  mating  of  the  birds,  the  following 
most  interesting  customs  seemed  to  be  prevalent. 

The  hen  would  establish  herself  on  an  old  nest,  or 
in  some  cases  scoop  out  a  hollow  in  the  ground  and 
sit  in  or  by  this,  waiting  for  a  mate  to  propose 
himself.  (Fig.  26.)  She  would  not  attempt  to 
build  while  she  remained  unmated.  During  the 
first  week  of  the  nesting  season,  when  plenty  of 
fresh  arrivals  were  continually  pouring  into  the 
rookery,  she  did  not  have  long  to  wait  as  a  rule. 
Later,  when  the  rookery  was  getting  filled  up, 
and  only  a  few  birds  remained  unmated  in  that 
vast  crowd  of  some  three-quarters  of  a  million,  her 
chances  were  not  so  good. 

For  example,  on  November  16  on  a  knoll  thickly 
populated  by  mated  birds,  many  of  which  already 

35 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

had  eggs,  a  hen  was  observed  to  have  scooped  a 
little  hollow  in  the  ground  and  to  be  sitting  in  this. 
Day  after  day  she  sat  on  looking  thinner  and 
sadder  as  time  passed  and  making  no  attempt  to 
build  her  nest.  At  last,  on  November  27,  she  had 
her  reward,  for  I  found  that  a  cock  had  joined  her, 
and  she  was  busily  building  her  nest  in  the  little 
scoop  she  had  made  so  long  before,  her  husband 
steadily  working  away  to  provide  her  with  the 
necessary  pebbles.  Her  forlorn  appearance  of  the 
past  ten  days  had  entirely  given  place  to  an  air  of 
occupation  and  happiness. 

As  time  went  on  I  became  certain  that  in- 
variably pairing  took  place  after  arrival  at  the 
rookery.  On  October  23  I  went  to  the  place  where 
the  stream  of  arrivals  was  coming  up  the  beach,  and 
presently  followed  a  single  bird,  which  I  afterwards 
found  to  be  a  cock,  to  see  what  it  was  going  to  do. 
He  threaded  his  way  through  nearly  the  whole 
length  of  the  rookery  by  himself,  avoiding  the 
tenanted  knolls  where  the  nests  were,  by  keeping 
to  the  emptier  hollows.  About  every  hundred  yards 
or  so  he  stopped,  ruffled  up  his  feathers,  closed  his 
eyes  for  a  moment,  then  "  smoothed  himself  out " 
and  went  on  again,  thus  evidently  struggling  against 
desire  for  sleep  after  his  journey.  As  he  progressed 
36 


•IVf- 


FICJ.  19.     ADKLIES  ARRIVING  AT  THE  KOOKEHY 


V 


FIG.  20.     A  COCK  CARRYING  A  STONE  TO  HIS  XEST 


(I'luje  21) 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

he  frequently  poked  his  little  head  forward  and  from 
side  to  side,  peering  up  at  the  knolls,  evidently  in 
search  of  something. 

Arrived  at  length  at  the  south  end  of  the 
rookery,  he  appeared  suddenly  to  make  up  his 
mind,  and  boldly  ascending  a  knoll  which  was  well 
tenanted  and  covered  with  nests,  walked  straight 
up  to  one  of  these  on  which  a  hen  sat.  There  was 
a  cock  standing  at  her  side,  but  my  little  friend 
either  did  not  see  him  or  wished  to  ignore  him 
altogether.  He  stuck  his  beak  into  the  frozen 
ground  in  front  of  the  nest,  lifted  up  his  head  and 
made  as  if  to  place  an  imaginary  stone  in  front  of 
the  hen,  a  most  obvious  piece  of  dumb  show.  The 
hen  took  not  the  slightest  notice  nor  did  her  mate. 

My  friend  then  turned  and  walked  up  to  another 
nest,  a  yard  or  so  off,  where  another  cock  and  hen 
were.  The  cock  flew  at  him  immediately,  and 
after  a  short  fight,  in  which  each  used  his  flippers 
savagely,  he  was  driven  clean  down  the  side  of  the 
knoll  away  from  the  nests,  the  victorious  cock 
returning  to  his  hen.  The  newcomer,  with  the 
persistence  which  characterises  his  kind,  came 
straight  back  to  the  same  nest  and  stood  close  by 
it,  soon  ruffling  his  feathers  and  evidently  settling 
himself  for  a  doze,  but,  I  suppose,  because  he  made 

37 


AD^LIE  PENGUINS 

no  further  overtures  the  others  took  no  notice  of 
him  at  all,  as,  overcome  by  sheer  weariness,  he 
went  to  sleep  and  remained  so  until  I  was  too  cold 
to  await  further  developments.  On  my  way  back 
to  our  hut  I  followed  another  cock  for  about  thirty 
yards,  when  he  walked  up  to  another  couple  at  a 
nest  and  gave  battle  to  the  cock.  He,  too,  was 
driven  off  after  a  short  and  decisive  fight.  Soon 
there  were  many  cocks  on  the  war-path.  Little 
knots  of  them  were  to  be  seen  about  the  rookery, 
the  lust  of  battle  in  them,  watching  and  fighting 
each  other  with  desperate  jealousy,  and  the  later 
the  season  advanced  the  more  "  bersac "  they 
became. 

A  typical  scene  I  find  described  in  my  notes  for 
October  25  when  I  was  out  with  my  camera,  and 
I  mention  it  as  a  type  of  the  hundreds  that  were 
proceeding  simultaneously  over  the  whole  rockery, 
and  also  because  I  was  able  to  photograph  different 
stages  of  the  proceedings  as  follows : 

Fig.  22  shows  a  group  of  three  cocks  engaged 
in  bitter  rivalry  round  a  hen  who  is  cowering  in 
her  scoop  in  which  she  had  been  waiting  as  is  their 
custom.  She  appeared  to  be  bewildered  and 
agitated  by  the  desperate  behaviour  of  the  cocks. 

On  Fig.  23  a  further  development  is  depicted, 
38 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

and  two  of  the  cocks  are  seen  to  be  squaring  up  for 
battle.  Close  behind  and  to  the  right  of  them  are 
seen  (from  left  to  right)  the  hen  and  the  third  cock, 
who  are  watching  to  see  the  result  of  the  contest, 
and  another  hen  cowering  for  protection  against  a 
cock  with  whom  she  has  become  established. 

Fig.  24  shows  the  two  combatants  hard  at  it, 
using  their  weight  as  they  lean  their  breasts  against 
one  another,  and  rain  in  the  blows  with  their  power- 
ful flippers. 

Fig.  25  shows  the  end  of  the  fight,  the  victor 
having  rushed  the  vanquished  cock  before  him  out 
of  the  crowd  and  on  to  a  patch  of  snow  on  which, 
as  he  was  too  brave  to  turn  and  run,  he  knocked 
him  down  and  gave  him  a  terrible  hammering. 

When  his  conqueror  left  him  at  length,  he  lay  for 
some  two  minutes  or  so  on  the  ground,  his  heaving 
breast  alone  showing  that  he  was  alive,  so  com- 
pletely exhausted  was  he,  but  recovering  himself  at 
length  he  arose  and  crawled  away,  a  damaged  flipper 
hanging  limply  by  his  side,  and  he  took  no  further 
part  in  the  proceedings.  The  victorious  bird  rushed 
back  up  the  side  of  the  knoll,  and  immediately  fought 
the  remaining  cock,  who  had  not  moved  from  his 
original  position,  putting  him  to  flight,  and  chasing 
him  in  and  out  of  the  crowd,  the  fugitive  doubling 

39 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

and  twisting  amongst  it  in  a  frantic  endeavour  to  get 
away,  and  I  quickly  lost  sight  of  them. 

Scenes  of  this  kind  became  so  common  all  over 
the  rookery,  that  the  roar  of  battle  and  thuds  of 
blows  could  be  heard  continuously,  and  of  the 
hundreds  of  such  fights,  all  plainly  had  their  cause 
in  rivalry  for  the  hens. 

When  starting  to  fight,  the  cocks  sometimes  peck 
at  each  other  with  their  beaks,  but  always  they  very 
soon  start  to  use  their  flippers,  standing  up  to  one  an- 
other and  raining  in  the  blows  with  such  rapidity  as 
to  make  a  sound  which,  in  the  words  of  Dr.  Wilson, 
resembles  that  of  a  boy  running  and  dragging  his 
hoop-stick  along  an  iron  paling.  Soon  they  start 
"in-fighting,"  in  which  position  one  bird  fights  right- 
handed,  the  other  left-handed ;  that  is  to  say,  one 
leans  his  left  breast  against  his  opponent,  swinging 
in  his  blows  with  his  right  flippers,  the  other  present- 
ing his  right  breast  and  using  his  left  flipper.  My 
photographs  of  cocks  fighting  all  show  this  plainly. 
It  is  interesting  to  note  that  these  birds,  though 
fighting  with  one  flipper  only,  are  ambidextrous. 
Whilst  battering  one  another  with  might  and  main 
they  use  their  weight  at  the  same  time,  and  as  one 
outlasts  the  other,  he  drives  his  vanquished  opponent 
before  him  over  the  ground,  as  a  trained  box- 
40 


!•'!<;.  22.     THREE  COCKS  IN  RIVALRY 


(See  page  38) 


FIG.  23.     Two  OF  THE  COCKS  SQUARING  ur  FOK  BATTLE 

(See  page  38) 


ing  man,  when  "  in-fighting  "  drives  his  exhausted 
opponent  round  the  ring. 

Desperate  as  these  encounters  are,  I  don't  think 
one  penguin  ever  kills  another.  In  many  cases 
blood  is  drawn.  I  saw  one  with  an  eye  put  out, 
and  that  side  of  its  beak  (the  right  side)  clotted 
with  blood,  whilst  the  crimson  print  of  a  blood- 
stained flipper  across  a  white  breast  was  no  un- 
common sight. 

Hard  as  they  can  hit  with  their  flippers,  however, 
they  are  also  well  protected  by  their  feathers,  and 
being  marvellously  tough  and  enduring  the  end 
of  a  hard  fight  merely  finds  the  vanquished  bird 
prostrate  with  exhaustion  and  with  most  of  the 
breath  beaten  out  of  his  little  body.  The  victor  is 
invariably  satisfied  with  this,  and  does  not  seek  to 
dispatch  him  with  his  beak. 

It  was  very  usual  to  see  a  little  group  of  cocks 
gathered  together  in  the  middle  of  one  of  the 
knolls  squabbling  noisily.  Sometimes  half  a  dozen 
would  be  lifting  their  raucous  voices  at  one  par- 
ticular bird,  then  they  would  separate  into  pairs, 
squaring  up  to  one  another  and  emphasizing  their 
remarks  from  time  to  time  by  a  few  quick  blows 
from  their  flippers.  It  seemed  that  each  was  in- 
dignant with  the  others  for  coming  and  spoiling  his 

41 


chances  with  a  coveted  hen,  and  trying  to  get  them 
to  depart  before  he  went  to  her. 

It  was  useless  for  either  to  attempt  overtures 
whilst  the  others  were  there,  for  the  instant  he  did 
so,  he  would  be  set  upon  and  a  desperate  fight 
begin.  Usually,  as  in  the  case  I  described  above, 
one  of  the  little  crowd  would  suddenly  "  see  red  " 
and  sail  into  an  opponent  with  desperate  energy, 
invariably  driving  him  in  the  first  rush  down  the 
side  of  the  knoll  to  the  open  space  surrounding  it, 
where  the  fight  would  be  fought  out,  the  victor  re- 
turning to  the  others,  until  by  his  prowess  and  force 
of  character,  he  would  rid  himself  of  them  all.  Then 
came  his  overtures  to  the  hen.  He  would,  as  a 
rule,  pick  up  a  stone  and  lay  it  in  front  of  her  if  she 
were  sitting  in  her  "  scoop,"  or  if  she  were  standing 
by  it  he  might  himself  squat  in  it.  She  might  take 
to  him  kindly,  or,  as  often  happened,  peck  him 
furiously.  To  this  he  would  submit  tamely,  hunch- 
ing up  his  feathers  and  shutting  his  eyes  while  she 
pecked  him  cruelly.  Generally  after  a  little  of  this 
she  would  become  appeased.  He  would  rise  to  his 
feet,  and  in  the  prettiest  manner  edge  up  to  her, 
gracefully  arch  his  neck,  and  with  soft  guttural 
sounds  pacify  her  and  make  love  to  her. 

Both  perhaps  would  then  assume  the  "  ecstatic" 
42 


4     n 


Fin.  24.     "  HARD  AT  IT  " 


FIG.  25.     THE  END  OF  THE  BATTLE 


(Page  39) 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

attitude,  rocking  their  necks  from  side  to  side  as 
they  faced  one  another  (Fig.  26),  and  after  this  a 
perfect  understanding  would  seem  to  grow  up 
between  them,  and  the  solemn  compact  was  made. 

It  is  difficult  to  convey  in  words  the  daintiness 
of  this  pretty  little  scene.  I  saw  it  enacted  many 
dozens  of  times,  and  it  was  wonderful  to  watch  one 
of  these  hardy  little  cocks  pacifying  a  fractious  hen 
by  the  perfect  grace  of  his  manners. 

Fig.  21  is  particularly  instructive.  In  the  centre 
of  the  picture  a  group  of  cocks  are  quarrelling,  and 
on  the  left-hand  side  three  unmated  hens  can 
be  seen  sitting  in  their  scoops,  whilst  two  of  them 
(the  two  in  front)  are  receiving  overtures  from  two 
of  the  cocks  who  are  making  the  most  of  their  time 
whilst  the  others  are  fighting.  On  the  right-hand 
side  another  cock  is  seen  proposing  himself  to  a 
fourth  hen  who  seems  to  be  meeting  his  overtures 
with  the  usual  show  of  reluctance. 

Although  for  the  later  arrivals  a  good  deal 
of  fighting  was  necessary  before  a  mate  could 
be  secured,  it  seemed  that  some  got  the  matter 
fixed  up  without  any  difficulty  at  all,  especially 
during  the  earlier  days  when  only  a  few  birds  were 
scattered  widely  over  the  rookery.  Later,  the 
cocks  seemed  to  watch  one  another  jealously,  and 

43 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

to  hunt  in   little  batches  in  consequence.     (Figs. 
27,  28,  and  29.) 

From  the  particulars  I  have  just  given  it  is  also 
evident  that  a  wife  and  home  once  obtained  could 
only  be  kept  by  dint  of  further  battling  and 
constant  vigilance  during  the  first  stages  of 
domesticity,  when  thousands  of  lusty  cocks  were 
pouring  into  the  rookery,  and  it  was  not  unusual  to 
see  a  strange  cock  paying  court  to  a  mated  hen 
in  the  absence  of  her  husband  until  he  returned 
to  drive  away  the  interloper,  but  I  do  not  think 
that  this  ever  occurred  after  the  eggs  had  come  and 
the  regular  family  life  begun,  couples  after  this 
being  perfectly  faithful  to  one  another. 

The  instance  I  have  given  of  a  newly  arrived 
cock  by  dumb  show  pretending  to  take  a  stone 
and  place  it  before  a  mated  hen,  is  typical  of 
the  sort  of  first  overture  one  sees,  though  more 
frequently  an  actual  stone  was  tendered.  While  on 
this  subject  I  had  better  mention  a  most  interesting 
thing  which  occurred  to  one  of  my  companions. 
One  day  as  he  was  sitting  quietly  on  some  shingle 
near  the  ice-foot,  a  penguin  approached  him, 
and  after  eyeing  him  for  a  little,  walked  right  up 
to  him  and  nibbled  gently  at  one  of  the  legs  of 
his  wind-proof  trousers.  Then  it  walked  away, 
44 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

picked  up  a  pebble,  and  came  back  with  it,  dropping 
it  on  the  ground  by  his  side.  The  only  explanation 
of  this  occurrence  seems  to  be  that  the  tendering  of 
the  stone  was  meant  as  an  overture  of  friendship. 

On  October  26  there  was  no  abatement  in  the 
stream  of  arrivals.  The  cock-fighting  continued, 
and  many  of  them,  temporarily  disabled,  were  to 
be  seen  moping  about  the  rookery,  smeared  with 
blood  and  guano.  Often  a  hen  would  join  in  when 
two  cocks  were  righting,  occasionally  going  first  for 
one  and  then  the  other,  but  I  never  to  my  know- 
ledge saw  a  cock  retaliate  on  a  hen. 

Once  I  saw  two  cocks  fighting,  and  a  hen  taking 
the  part  of  one  of  the  cocks,  the  pair  of  them  gave 
the  other  a  fearful  hammering,  the  hen  using 
her  bill  savagely  as  well  as  her  flippers.  Completely 
knocked  out  and  gasping  for  breath  he  got  away  at 
last,  only  to  meet  another  cock  who  fought  him 
and  easily  beat  him.  When  this  one  had  gone 
a  third  came,  and  the  poor  victim  with  a  courage 
truly  noble  was  squaring  himself  up  with  his 
last  spark  of  energy,  when  I  interfered  and  drove 
away  his  enemy. 

The  nests  on  most  of  the  knolls  soon  became  so 
crowded  that  their  occupants,  by  stretching  out 
their  necks,  could  reach  their  neighbours  without 

45 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

getting  up.  As  every  hen  appeared  to  hate  her 
neighbour  they  would  peck-peck  at  one  another 
hour  after  hour,  in  the  manner  seen  in  my 
photograph,*  till  their  mouths  and  heads  became 
terribly  sore.  Occasionally  they  would  desist,  shake 
their  heads  apparently  from  pain,  then  at  it  again. 
In  various  places  through  the  course  of  these 
pages,  reference  is  made  to  the  "  ecstatic  "  attitude 
of  the  penguins.  This  antic  is  gone  through  by 
both  sexes  and  at  various  times,  though  much  more 
frequently  during  the  actual  breeding  season.  The 
bird  rears  its  body  upward  and  stretching  up  its 
neck  in  a  perpendicular  line,  discharges  a  volley 
of  guttural  sounds  straight  at  the  unresponding 
heavens.  At  the  same  time  the  clonic  movements 
of  its  syrinx  or  "  sound  box  "  distinctly  can  be  seen 
going  on  in  its  throat.  Why  it  does  this  I  have 
never  been  able  to  make  out,  but  it  appears  to  be 
thrown  into  this  ecstasy  when  it  is  pleased  ;  in  fact, 
the  zoologist  of  the  "  Pourquoi  Pas "  expedition 
termed  it  the  "  Chant  de  satisfaction."  I  suppose 
it  may  be  likened  to  the  crowing  of  a  cock  or  the 
braying  of  an  ass.  When  one  bird  of  a  pair  starts 
to  perform  in  this  way,  the  other  usually  starts  at 
once  to  pacify  it.  Very  many  times  I  saw  this 

*  Fig.  12. 
4G 


FIG.  27.     COCKS  FIGHTING  FOR  HENS 


FlU.    28.       COCKS    FKiHTING    FOR    HENS 


(Pd'/r    44) 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

scene  enacted  when  nesting  was  in  progress.  The 
two  might  be  squatting  by  the  nest  when  one  would 
arise  to  assume  the  "ecstatic"  attitude  and  make 
the  gutteral  sounds  in  its  syrinx.  Immediately 
the  other  would  get  close  up  to  it  and  make  the 
following  noise  in  a  soft  soothing  tone : 


A -ah 

Always  and  immediately  this  caused  the  musician 
to  subside  and  settle  itself  down  again. 
The  King  penguin  at  the  Zoological  Gardens, 
whose  sex  is  unknown,  throws  itself  into  the 
ecstatic  attitude  and  sings  a  sort  of  song  when  its 
keeper  strokes  its  neck.  The  blackfooted  penguins 
never  do  it,  though  they  breed  several  times  a  year. 
Figs.  26  and  32  show  Adelies  in  ecstatic  attitude. 

To-day  about  a  dozen  skua  gulls  (Megakstris 
Makormiki)  appeared  for  the  first  time.  They  did 
not  start  to  nest,  but  sat  on  the  sea-ice  with  a 
group  of  penguins,  in  apparent  amity.  A  few 
occasionally  flew  about  over  the  rookery. 

On  October  27  though  the  stream  of  arrivals 
continued  there  were  wide  gaps  in  it.  It  appeared 

47 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

to  be  thinning.  For  an  hour  in  the  forenoon  it 
stopped  altogether,  and  at  the  end  of  this  time  a 
storm  of  wind  from  the  south  struck  us  and  con- 
tinued for  another  hour  with  thick  drift.  Probably 
clear  of  Cape  Adare  the  wind  had  been  blowing 
before  it  reached  us,  and  had  stopped  the  birds' 
progress  across  the  ice. 

During  the  storm  the  rookery  was  completely 
silenced,  most  of  the  birds  lying  with  their  heads  to 
the  wind.  A  good  many  skuas  arrived  that  day. 
Some  chips  of  white,  glistening  quartz  had  been 
thrown  down  by  our  hut  door  recently,  and  later  I 
found  two  of  these  chips  in  a  nest  about  thirty 
yards  away,  showing  up  brightly  against  the  black 
basalt  of  which  all  the  pebbles  on  the  rookery  were 
composed. 

As  a  rule  the  penguins  were  careful  to  select 
rounded  stones  for  their  nests,  but  these  fragments 
of  quartz  were  jagged  and  uncomfortable,  and  most 
unsuitable  for  nest  building.  Thus  it  was  evidently 
the  brightness  of  the  stones  which  attracted  them. 
Whilst  I  looked  on,  the  owners  of  the  pieces  of 
quartz  were  wrangling  with  their  neighbours,  and 
a  penguin  in  a  nest  behind  shot  out  its  beak  and 
stole  one  of  the  pieces,  placing  it  in  its  own  nest. 
I  had  brought  Campbell  out  to  show  him  the  pieces 
48 


FlG.    29.      COCKS    FIGHTING    FOR   HENS 


(Pa ye  44) 


FIG.  30.     PENGUIN  ON  XKST 


THE  FASTING  PERIOD 

of    quartz,    and    he   witnessed    the    last   incident 
with  me. 

I  may  here  mention  an  experiment  I  tried  some 
days  later.  I  painted  some  pebbles  a  bright  red 
and  had  others  covered  with  bright  green  cotton 
material  as  I  had  no  other  coloured  paint.  Mixing 
a  handful  of  these  coloured  stones  together  I  placed 
them  in  a  little  heap  amongst  natural  black  ones 
near  a  nest-covered  knoll.  Returning  in  a  few 
hours  I  found  nearly  all  the  red  stones  and  one  or 
two  of  the  green  ones  gone,  and  later  found  them 
in  nests.  Later  still,  all  the  red  ones  had  dis- 
appeared, and  last  of  all  the  green  ones.  I  traced 
nearly  all  these  to  nests,  and  found  a  few  days  later 
that,  like  the  pieces  of  white  quartz,  they  were 
being  stolen  from  nest  to  nest  and  thus  slowly 
being  distributed  in  different  directions.  At  other 
times  I  saw  pieces  of  tin,  pieces  of  glass,  half  a 
stick  of  chocolate,  and  the  head  of  a  bright  metal 
teaspoon  in  different  nests  near  our  hut,  the  articles 
evidently  having  been  taken  from  our  scrap-heap. 
Thus  it  is  evident  that  penguins  like  bright  colours 
and  prefer  red  to  green,  as  instanced  by  the  selec- 
tion of  the  coloured  pebbles.  I  am  sorry  that  I 
did  not  carry  these  colour  tests  further. 

During  October  29  the  stream  of  arrivals  was 

D  49 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

undiminished,  but  the  next  day  it  slackened  con- 
siderably, and  during  the  next  two  days  stopped 
altogether,  all  the  rising  ground  of  the  rookery  now 
being  literally  crammed  full  with  nests,  several 
thousands  of  them  being  scattered  up  the  slopes  of 
Cape  Adare  to  a  height  of  a  thousand  feet. 


50 


FIG.  31.    SHOWING  THE  POSITION  OF  THE  Two  EGGS 


FIG.  32.    AN  ADEME  IN  "ECSTATIC"  ATTITUDE 


(/'age  47) 


PART  II 

DOMESTIC  LIFE  OF  THE 
ADELIE  PENGUIN 

Laying  and  incubation  of  the  eggs  :  The  Adelies' 
habits  in  the  water  :  Their  games  :  Care  of  the  young  : 
The  later  development  of  their  social  system. 

ON  November  3  several  eggs  were  found,  and  on 
the  4th  these  were  beginning  to  be  plentiful  in 
places,  though  many  of  the  colonies  had  not  yet 
started  to  lay. 

Let  me  here  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  up  to 
now  not  a  single  bird  out  of  all  those  thousands 
had  left  the  rookery  once  it  had  entered  it.  Con- 
sequently not  a  single  bird  had  taken  food  of  any 
description  during  all  the  most  strenuous  part  of 
the  breeding  season,  and  as  they  did  not  start  to 
feed  till  November  8  thousands  had  to  my  know- 
ledge fasted  for  no  fewer  than  twenty-seven  days. 
Now  of  all  the  days  of  the  year  these  twenty-seven 
are  certainly  the  most  trying  during  the  life  of  the 
Adelie. 

51 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

With  the  exception,  in  some  cases,  of  a  few 
hours  immediately  after  arrival  (and  I  believe  the 
later  arrivals  could  not  afford  themselves  even  this 
short  respite)  constant  vigilance  had  been  main- 
tained ;  battle  after  battle  had  been  fought ;  some 
had  been  nearly  killed  in  savage  encounters,  re- 
covered, fought  again  and  again  with  varying 
fortune.  They  had  mated  at  last,  built  their  nests, 
procreated  their  species,  and,  in  short,  met  the 
severest  trials  that  Nature  can  inflict  upon  mind 
and  body,  and  at  the  end  of  it,  though  in  many 
cases  blood-stained  and  in  all  caked  and  bedraggled 
with  mire,  they  were  as  active  and  as  brave  as  ever. 

When  one  egg  had  been  laid  the  hen  still  sat  on 
the  nest.  The  egg  had  to  be  continually  warmed, 
and  as  the  temperature  was  well  below  freezing- 
point,  exposure  would  mean  the  death  of  the 
embryo. 

In  order  to  determine  the  period  between  the 
laying  of  the  two  eggs,  I  numbered  seven  nests 
with  wooden  pegs,  writing  on  the  pegs  the  date  on 
which  each  egg  was  laid.  The  result  obtained  is 
shown  on  page  53. 

The  average  interval  in  the  four  cases  where  two 
eggs  were  laid  being  3'5  days. 

No.  7  nest  was  that  of  the  hen  which  I  men- 
52 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

tioned  as  having  waited  for  so  long  for  a  mate, 
and   the  lateness  of  the  date  on  which  the  first 


Date  of 
appearance 
of  first  egg 

Date  of 
appearance 
of  second  egg 

Interval 

No.  1  nest     . 

Nov.  14 

— 

Only  1  laid 

No.  2  nest 

Nov.  13 

Nov.  16 

3  days 

No.  3  nest     . 

Nov.  14 

Nov.  1  7 

3  days 

No.  4  nest     . 

No.  5  nest     . 

Nov.  1  2 

Nov.  16 

4  days 

No.  6  nest     . 

Nov.    8 

Nov.  12 

4  days 

No.  7  nest     . 

Nov.  24 

— 

Only  1  laid 

egg  appeared   may  have   resulted  in   there  being 
no  other. 

The  only  notes  I  have  on  the  incubation  period 
are  that  the  first  chick  appeared  in  No.  5  nest  on 
December  19  (incubation  period  thirty-seven  days) 
and  in  No.  7  nest  on  December  28  (incubation 
period  thirty-four  days). 

53 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

The  skuas  had  increased  considerably  in  numbers 
by  November  4,  and  frequently  came  to  the  scrap- 
heap  outside  our  hut.  Here  were  many  frozen 
carcasses  of  penguins  which  we  had  thrown  there 
after  the  breasts  had  been  removed  for  food  during 
the  past  winter.  The  skuas  picked  the  bones  quite 
clean  of  flesh,  so  that  the  skeletons  lay  white  under 
the  skins,  and  it  was  remarkable  to  what  distances 
they  sometimes  carried  the  carcasses,  which  weighed 
considerably  more  than  the  skuas  themselves.  I 
found  some  of  these  bodies  over  five  hundred  yards 
away. 

A  perpetual  feud  was  carried  on  between  the 
penguins  and  the  skuas.  The  latter  birds  come  to 
the  south  in  the  summer,  and  make  their  nests 
close  to,  and  in  some  cases  actually  among,  those  of 
the  penguins,  and  during  the  breeding  time  live 
almost  entirely  on  the  eggs,  and  later,  on  the  chicks. 
They  never  attack  the  adult  penguins,  who  run  at 
them  and  drive  them  away  when  they  light  within 
reach,  but  as  the  skuas  can  take  to  the  wing  and 
the  penguins  cannot,  no  pursuit  is  possible. 

The  skuas  fly  about  over  the  rookery,  keeping  only 
a  few  yards  from  the  ground,  and  should  one  of  them 
see  a  nest  vacated  and  the  eggs  exposed,  if  only  for 
a  few  seconds,  it  swoops  at  this,  and  with  scarcely 
54 


KIG.  34.     FLOODED 


FIG.  35.     A  XEKT  WITH  STONES  OF  MIXED  SIZES 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

a  pause  in  its  flight,  transfixes  an  egg  upon  its  beak 
and  carries  it  to  an  open  space  on  the  ground,  there 
to  devour  the  contents.  Here  then  was  another 
need  for  constant  vigilance,  and  so  daring  did  the 
skuas  become,  that  often  when  a  penguin  sat  on 
a  nest  carelessly,  so  as  to  leave  one  of  the  eggs 
protruding  from  under  it,  a  lightning  dash  from  a 
skua  would  result  in  the  egg  being  borne  trium- 
phantly away. 

The  bitterness  of  the  penguins'  hatred  of  the  skuas 
was  well  shown  in  the  neighbourhood  of  our  scrap- 
heap.  None  of  the  food  thrown  out  on  to  this  heap 
was  of  the  least  use  to  the  penguins,  but  we  noticed 
after  a  time  that  almost  always  there  were  one  or 
more  penguins  there,  keeping  guard  against  the 
skuas,  and  doing  their  utmost  to  prevent  them  from 
getting  the  food,  and  never  allowing  them  to  light 
on  the  heap  for  more  than  a  few  seconds  at  a  time. 
In  fact,  a  constant  feature  of  this  heap  was  the 
sentry  penguin,  darting  hither  and  thither,  aiming 
savage  pecks  at  the  skuas,  which  would  then  rise  a 
yard  or  two  into  the  air  out  of  reach,  the  penguin 
squalling  in  its  anger  at  being  unable  to  follow  its 
enemy.  At  this  juncture  the  penguin  would  imitate 
the  flying  motion  with  its  flappers,  seeming  instinc- 
tively to  attempt  to  mount  into  the  air,  as  its 

55 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

remote  ancestors  doubtlessly  did,  before  their  wings 
had  adapted  themselves  solely  to  swimming. 

Close  to  the  scrap-heap  there  was  a  large  knoll 
crowded  with  penguins'  nests,  and  it  was  this  knoll 
that  provided  the  sentries.  Very  rarely  did  one  of 
these  leave  the  heap  until  another  came  to  relieve 
it  as  long  as  there  were  skuas  about,  but  when  the 
skuas  went  the  penguins  left  it  too.  When  the 
skuas  returned,  however,  and  without  the  lapse  of 
a  few  seconds,  a  penguin  would  be  seen  to  detach  it- 
self from  the  knoll  and  run  to  guard  the  heap.  That 
some  primitive  understanding  on  this  matter  existed 
among  the  penguins  seems  to  me  probable,  because 
whilst  there  were  generally  one  or  two  guarding 
the  heap,  there  was  never  a  crowd,  the  rest  of  the 
knoll  seeming  quite  satisfied  as  long  as  one  of 
their  number  remained  on  guard. 

In  describing  the  Cape  Adare  rookery  I  men- 
tioned the  fact  that  the  pebbles  entering  into  the 
formation  of  the  beach  are  basaltic,  and  therefore  of 
a  dead  black  shade.  The  result  of  this  is  that  as 
the  sun's  altitude  increases,  heat  is  absorbed  readily 
by  the  black  rock,  through  that  clear  atmosphere, 
and  the  snow  upon  it  rapidly  melts. 

For  a  long  time  the  penguins  at  their  nests  had 
satisfied  their  thirst  by  eating  the  snow  near  them, 
50 


• 


FIG.  36.     "HOUR  AFTER  HOUR,  DURING  THE  WHOLE  DAY, 
THEY  FOUGHT  AGAIN  AND  AGAIN" 

(f'tir/e  G8> 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

but  as  this  disappeared,  they  suffered  greatly,  as 
was  made  evident  by  the  way  they  lay  with  beaks 
open  and  tongues  exposed  between  them.  (Fig. 
30.)  As  time  went  on  the  cocks  started  to  make 
short  journeys  to  the  drifts  which  still  remained  in 
order  to  quench  their  thirst,  but  the  hens  stuck 
manfully,  or  rather  "  henfully "  to  their  posts, 
though  some  of  them  seemed  much  distressed. 
Later,  those  cocks  which  had  nested  in  the  centre 
of  the  rookery  had  quite  long  journeys  to  make  in 
order  to  find  drifts,  a  very  popular  resort  being  that 
which  had  formed  in  the  lee  of  our  hut,  and  all  day 
streams  of  them  came  here  to  gobble  snow.  Once 
a  cock  was  seen  to  take  a  lump  of  snow  in  his  beak 
and  carry  it  to  his  mate  on  the  nest,  who  ate  it. 

Mr.  Priestley  tells  me  that  when  he  was  at  Cape 
Royds  in  1908  he  saw  cocks  taking  snow  to  hens 
on  their  nests.  This  procedure  would  seem  to  be 
different  to  the  parental  instinct  which  governs  the 
feeding  of  the  young,  and  it  seemed  to  show  that 
the  cock  realized  that  the  hen  must  be  thirsty  and 
in  need  of  the  snow,  and  kept  this  fact  in  mind 
when  he  was  away  from  her.  Another  point  to 
note  is  that  the  occurrence  was  a  very  rare  and,  in 
fact,  exceptional  one. 

When  conditions  arose  which  were  new  to  their 

57 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

experience  the  penguins  seemed  utterly  unable  to 
grasp  them. 

As  an  example  of  this,  we  had  rigged  a  guide 
rope  from  our  hut  to  the  meteorological  screen, 
about  fifty  yards  away,  to  guide  us  during  blizzards. 
This  rope,  which  was  supported  by  poles  driven 
into  the  ground,  sagged  in  one  place  till  it  nearly 
touched  the  ground.  At  frequent  intervals,  pen- 
guins on  their  wray  past  the  hut  were  brought  to  a 
standstill  by  running  their  breasts  into  this  sagged 
rope,  and  each  bird  as  it  was  caught  invariably 
went  through  the  same  ridiculous  procedure.  First 
it  would  push  hard  against  the  rope,  then  finding 
this  of  no  avail,  back  a  few  steps,  walk  up  to  it 
again  and  have  another  push,  repeating  the  process 
several  times.  After  this,  instead  of  going  a  few 
feet  further  along  where  it  could  easily  walk  under 
the  rope,  in  ninety  per  cent,  of  cases  it  would  turn, 
and  by  a  wide  detour  walk  right  round  the  hut  the 
other  way,  evidently  convinced  that  some  unknown 
obstacle  completely  barred  its  passage  on  that  side. 
This  spectacle  was  a  continual  source  of  amuse- 
ment to  us  as  it  went  on  all  day  and  every  day  for 
some  time. 

As  penguins'  eggs  are  very  good  to  eat  and  a 
great  luxury,  as  well  as  being  beneficial  to  men 
58 


FIG.  37.     A  XEST  ON  A  KOCK 


71) 


•'-,-. 


•I 


Fu;.  38.     "ONE  AFTER  ANOTHER,  THE  REST  OF  THE  PARTY 

FOLLOWED    HIM  " 

(Page  75) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

living  under  Antarctic  conditions,  we  collected  a 
large  number,  which  we  stowed  away  to  freeze. 
To  collect  these  eggs  we  used  to  set  off,  carrying 
a  bucket,  and  walk  through  the  knolls.  As  we 
picked  our  way,  carefully  placing  our  feet  in  the 
narrow  spaces  between  the  nests,  we  were  savagely 
pecked  about  the  legs,  as  in  most  positions  at 
least,  these  birds  could  reach  us  without  even  leaving 
the  nest,  whilst  very  often  the  mates  standing  near 
them  would  sail  in  at  us,  raining  in  blows  with 
their  flippers  with  the  rapidity  of  a  maxim  gun. 

To  search  for  eggs  it  was  necessary  to  lift  up  the 
occupant  of  each  nest  and  look  beneath  her.  If 
she  were  tackled  from  front  or  flank  this  was  a 
painful  and  difficult  business,  as  she  drove  at  the 
intruder's  hands  with  powerful  strokes  of  her  sharp 
beak,  but  we  found  that  the  best  way  to  set  about 
the  matter  was  to  dangle  a  fur  mit  in  front  of 
her  with  one  hand,  and  when  she  seized  this 
quickly  slip  the  other  behind  her,  lifting  her  nether 
regions  from  the  nest,  and  at  the  same  time  push- 
ing her  gently  forward.  Immediately  she  would 
drop  the  fur  mit,  and  sticking  her  beak  into  the 
ground  push  herself  backward  with  a  determined 
effort  to  stay  on  the  nest.  So  long  as  the  pressure 
from  behind  was  kept  up  she  would  keep  her  beak 

59 


AD^LIE  PENGUINS 

firmly  fixed  in  the  ground,  and  could  be  robbed  at 
will. 

The  egg  abstracted,  she  was  then  left  in  peace, 
on  which  she  would  rise  to  her  feet,  look  under  her 
for  the  egg  and,  finding  that  it  was  gone,  ruffle  her 
feathers,  and,  trembling  with  indignation,  look 
round  for  the  robber,  seemingly  quite  unable  to 
realize  that  we  were  the  guilty  ones.  This  is 
typical  of  the  Adelie's  attitude  towards  us.  We 
are  beyond  their  comprehension,  and  fear  of  us, 
anger  at  us,  curiosity  over  us,  although  frequently 
shown,  are  displayed  only  for  a  fleeting  moment. 
In  a  few  minutes  she  might  forget  about  the 
incident  altogether  and  quietly  resume  her  position 
on  the  empty  nest,  but  very  often  she  would 
violently  attack  any  other  bird  who  might  happen 
to  be  standing  near,  and  thus  as  we  filled  our 
buckets  we  left  a  line  of  altercation  in  our  wake. 
This,  however,  was  not  long  lived,  and  affairs  soon 
settled  down  to  their  normal  state,  and  I  believe 
that  in  about  one  minute  the  affair  was  completely 
forgotten.  The  penguin,  indeed,  is  in  its  nature 
the  embodiment  of  all  that  man  should  be  when  he 
explores  the  Antarctic  regions,  ever  acting  on  the 
principle  that  it  is  of  no  use  to  worry  over  spilt 
milk. 
60 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

The  comparative  size  of  the  penguin's  egg  is 
shown  in  some  of  my  photographs.  Ninety-six 
eggs  averaged  4*56  ounces  apiece.  They  vary  in 
size  from  about  6 '45  c.m.  to  7 "2  c.m.  in  length,  and 
from  5-0  c.m.  to  5' 5  c.m.  in  breadth,  on  an  average. 
Both  ends  are  nearly  equally  rounded,  and  of  a  white 
chalky  texture  without,  and  green  within.  This 
green  colour  is  plainly  shown  by  transmitted  light. 

When  the  two  have  been  laid  the  sitting  bird 
places  them  one  in  front  of  the  other.  The  rear- 
most egg  is  tucked  up  on  the  outspread  feet,  the 
foremost  lies  on  the  ground,  and  is  covered  by  the 
belly  of  the  bird  as  it  lies  forward  upon  it.  (Fig. 
31.)  By  many  of  the  birds  a  strong  inclination  to 
burrow  was  displayed,  and  they  seemed  very  fond 
of  delving  in  the  soft  shingle  ledges  that  were  to  be 
found  on  some  parts  of  the  beach.  They  did  this 
ostensibly  to  get  small  stones  for  their  nests,  but 
certainly  burrowed  deeper  than  they  need  have 
done,  and  occasionally  squatted  for  some  time  in 
little  caves  that  they  made  in  this  way.  I  noticed 
the  same  thing  in  the  drifts  when  they  went  to  eat 
snow,  and  thought  at  times  that  they  were  going 
to  make  underground  nests,  but  they  never  did  so, 
though  some  of  the  little  shingle  caves  would  have 
made  ideal  nesting  sites. 

61 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

By  November  7,  though  many  nests  were  still 
without  eggs,  a  large  number  now  contained  two, 
and  their  owners  started,  turn  and  turn  about,  to 
go  to  the  open  water  leads  about  a  third  of  a  mile 
distant  to  feed,  and  as  a  result  of  this  a  change 
began  gradually  to  come  over  the  face  of  the 
rookery.  Hitherto  the  whole  ground  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  nests  had  been  stained  a  bright 
green.  This  was  due  to  the  fasting  birds  continually 
dropping  their  watery,  bile-stained  excreta  upon  it. 
(The  gall  of  penguins  is  bright  green.)  These 
excreta  practically  contained  no  solid  matter  except- 
ing epithelial  cells  and  salts. 

The  nests  themselves  are  never  fouled,  the 
excreta  being  squirted  clear  of  them  for  a  distance 
of  a  foot  or  more,  so  that  each  nest  has  the  appear- 
ance of  a  flower  with  bright  green  petals  radiating 
from  its  centre.  Some  of  the  photographs  show 
this  well,  especially  Fig.  30.  Even  when  the 
chicks  have  come  and  are  being  sat  upon  by  the 
parents,  this  still  holds  good,  because  they  lie  with 
their  heads  under  the  old  bird's  belly  and  their 
hindquarters  just  presenting  themselves,  so  that 
they  may  add  their  little  decorative  offerings,  petal 
by  petal !  Now  that  the  birds  were  going  to  feed, 
the  watery-green  stains  upon  the  ground  gave 
62 


««§: 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

place  to  the  characteristic  bright  brick-red  guano, 
resulting  from  their  feeding  on  the  shrimp-like 
euphausia  in  the  sea ;  and  the  colour  of  the  whole 
rookery  was  changed  in  a  few  days,  though  this 
was  first  noticeable,  of  course,  in  the  region  of 
those  knolls  which  had  been  occupied  first,  and 
which  were  now  settled  down  to  the  peaceable  and 
regular  family  life  which  was  to  last  until  the  chicks 
had  grown.  • 

As  this  family  life  became  established,  law  and 
order  reigned  to  some  extent,  and  there  was  a 
distinct  tendency  to  preserve  it,  noticeably  on  those 
knolls  which  had  so  settled  down,  and  I  think  the 
following  most  surprising  incident  bears  evidence 
of  what  I  have  said.  I  quote  word  for  word  from 
my  notes  on  November  24,  1911 : 

"  This  afternoon  I  saw  two  cocks  (probably) 
engaged  in  a  very  fierce  fight,  which  lasted  a  good 
three  minutes.  They  were  fighting  with  flippers 
and  bills,  one  of  them  being  particularly  clever  with 
the  latter,  frequently  seizing  and  holding  his  oppo- 
nent just  behind  the  right  eye  whilst  he  battered 
him  with  his  flippers. 

"  After  a  couple  of  minutes,  during  which  each 
had  the  other  down  on  the  ground  several  times, 
three  or  four  other  penguins  ran  up  and  apparently 

63 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

tried  to  stop  the  fight.  This  is  the  only  construc- 
tion I  can  put  on  their  behaviour,  as  time  after  time 
they  kept  running  in  when  the  two  combatants 
clinched,  pushing  their  breasts  in  between  them, 
but  making  no  attempt  to  fight  themselves,  whilst 
their  more  collected  appearance  and  smooth  feathers 
were  in  marked  contrast  to  the  angry  attitudes  of 
the  combatants. 

"  The  fight,  which  had  started  on  the  outskirts 
of  a  knoll  crowded  with  nests,  soon  edged  away  to 
the  space  outside,  and  it  was  here  that  I  (and 
Campbell,  who  was  with  me)  saw  the  other  pen- 
guins try  to  stop  it.  The  last  minute  was  a  very 
fierce  and  vindictive  '  mill,'  both  fighting  with  all 
their  might,  and  ended  in  one  of  them  trying  to 
toboggan  away  from  his  opponent ;  but  he  was  too 
exhausted  to  get  any  pace  on,  so  that  just  as  he 
got  into  the  crowd  again  he  was  caught,  and  both 
fought  for  a  few  seconds  more,  when  the  apparent 
victor  suddenly  stopped  and  ran  away.  The  other 
picked  himself  up  and  made  his  way  rapidly  among 
the  nests,  evidently  searching  for  one  in  particular. 

"Following  him,  I  saw  him  run  up  to  a  nest 
near  the  place  where  the  fight  had  begun.  There 
was  a  solitary  penguin  waiting  by  this  nest,  which 
was  evidently  new  and  not  yet  completed,  and 
64 


£    ^ 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

without  eggs.  The  cock  I  had  followed,  ruffled 
and  battered  with  battle,  ran  up  to  the  waiting  bird, 
and  the  usual  side-to-side  chatter  in  the  ecstatic 
attitude  began  and  continued  for  half  a  minute,  after 
which  each  became  calmer,  and  I  left  them  appar- 
ently reconciled  and  arranging  stones  in  the  nest. 

"  This  incident  was  after  the  usual  nature  of  a 
dispute  between  two  mates  for  a  hen,  but  the  pacific 
interference  of  the  other  birds  was  quite  new  to 
my  experience.  That  it  was  pacific  I  am  quite 
convinced,  and  Campbell  agreed  with  me  that  there 
was  no  doubt  of  it.  All  the  nests  round  about 
had  eggs  under  incubation,  and  the  pair  in  question 
must  have  been  newcomers." 

On  returning  home  I  was  glad  to  find  that  Mr. 
Bernacchi,  who  landed  at  Cape  Adare  with  the 
"  Southern  Cross  "  expedition,  says  in  his  account 
(p.  131)  that  he  also  saw  penguins  interfering  and 
trying  to  stop  others  from  fighting. 

Owing  to  our  having  several  snowfalls  without 
wind,  and  to  the  action  of  the  sun  on  the  black 
rock,  which  I  have  mentioned  already,  the  rookery 
became  a  mass  of  slush  in  many  places,  and  in  some 
of  the  lower-lying  parts  actually  flooded.  In  some 
of  these  low-lying  situations  penguins  had  unwarily 
made  their  nests,  and  there  was  one  particular  little 

E  65 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

colony  near  our  hut  which  was  threatened  with  total 
extinction  from  the  accumulation  of  thaw  water. 
As  this  trickled  down  from  the  higher  ground 
around  them,  the  occupants  of  the  flooded  ground 
exerted  all  their  energies  to  avert  this  calamity,  and 
from  each  nest  one  of  its  tenants  could  be  seen 
making  journey  after  journey  for  pebbles,  which  it 
brought  to  the  one  sitting  on  the  nest,  who  placed 
stone  after  stone  in  position,  so  that  as  the  water 
rose  the  little  castle  grew  higher  and  higher  and 
kept  the  eggs  dry.  One  nest  in  particular  I  noticed 
which  was  as  yet  a  foot  or  so  clear  of  the  water  and 
on  dry  ground  ;  but  whilst  the  hen  sat  on  this, 
the  cock  was  working  most  energetically  in  anticipa- 
tion of  what  was  going  to  happen,  and  for  hours 
journeyed  to  and  from  the  nest,  each  time  wading 
across  the  little  lake  to  the  other  side,  where  he  was 
getting  the  stones. 

This  scene,  which  I  photographed,  is  depicted 
on  Fig.  33.  In  the  right-hand  corner  of  the 
picture  the  cock  is  seen  in  the  act  of  delivering 
another  stone  to  the  hen  who  is  waiting  to  receive 
it,  whilst  some  of  the  nests  are  actually  surrounded 
by  water.  Fig.  34  shows  another  nest,  rising  like 
a  little  island  from  a  thaw  pool,  the  eggs  being 
only  just  above  water. 
66 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

Some  time  ago  I  mentioned  that  there  were 
penguins  of  weak  individuality  who  allowed  others 
to  rob  them  of  their  stones,  and  this  was  in  some 
cases  very  noticeable  on  the  flooded  ground,  and 
there  were  one  or  two  nests  here  which  had  been 
almost  entirely  removed  by  thieving  neighbours. 

To  quote  again  from  my  notes. 

"November  10.  This  evening  I  saw  a  hen 
penguin  trying  to  sit  on  a  nest  with  two  eggs. 
The  nest  had  no  stones,  and  was  scooped  deeply 
in  the  ground  in  a  slush  of  melting  snow,  so  that 
the  eggs  were  nearly  covered  with  water.  The 
poor  hen  stood  in  the  water  and  kept  trying  to 
squat  down  on  the  eggs,  but  each  time  she  did  so, 
sat  in  the  water  and  had  to  get  up  again.  She 
was  shivering  with  cold  and  all  bedraggled. 

"  I  took  the  two  eggs  out  of  the  nest,  and 
Browning  and  I  collected  a  heap  of  stones  (partly 
from  her  richer  neighbours !)  and  built  the  nest 
well  up  above  the  water.  Then  I  replaced  the 
eggs,  and  the  hen  at  once  gladly  sat  on  them, 
put  them  in  position,  and  was  busily  engaged  in 
arranging  the  new  stones  round  her  when  we  left." 

One  day,  when  the  season  was  well  advanced,  I 
saw  a  violent  altercation  taking  place  between  two 
penguins,  one  of  which  was  in  possession  of  a  nest 

67 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

in  a  somewhat  isolated  position.  The  other 
evidently  was  doing  his  utmost  to  capture  the 
nest,  as  whenever  he  got  the  other  off,  he  stood 
on  it.  There  were  scarcely  any  stones  in  the  nest, 
which  contained  one  egg.  I  think  from  the  way 
they  fought  that  both  were  cocks. 

For  two  reasons  I  make  special  mention  of  the 
occurrence,  first,  because  of  all  the  fights  I  ever 
saw  this  was  the  longest  and  most  relentless,  and, 
secondly,  because  the  nest  being  in  such  an  isolated 
position  it  seemed  curious  that  there  could  be  any 
mistake  about  its  ownership.  Such,  however, 
seemed  to  be  the  case,  and  hour  after  hour,  during 
the  whole  day,  they  fought  again  and  again. 

After  each  bout  of  a  few  minutes  both  birds 
became  so  exhausted  that  they  sank  panting  to 
the  ground,  evidently  suffering  from  thirst  and  at 
the  limit  of  their  endurance.  Sometimes  one 
captured  the  nest,  sometimes  the  other,  but  after 
several  hours  of  this,  one  of  them  began  to  show 
signs  of  outlasting  the  other,  and  kept  possession. 
For  long  after  this,  however,  the  other  returned 
repeatedly  to  the  attack. 

I  fetched  my  camera  and  photographed  the  birds 
as  they  fought  (Fig.  36).  As  time  went  on,  the 
weaker  bird  took  longer  and  longer  intervals  to 
68 


ft 

sv<v< 

\      -Ww 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

recover  between  his  attacks,  lying  on  his  breast, 
with  his  head  on  the  snow  and  eyes  half  closed,  so 
that  I  thought  he  was  going  to  die.  Each  time 
he  got  to  his  feet  and  staggered  at  his  enemy,  the 
latter  rose  from  the  nest  and  met  him,  only  to 
drive  him  back  again.  When  I  saw  them  at  about 
10  P.M.  (it  was  perpetual  daylight  now)  both  were 
lying  down,  the  victor  on  the  nest,  the  vanquished 
about  five  yards  off.  The  next  day  one  bird  re- 
mained on  the  nest  and  the  other  had  gone,  and  I 
do  not  know  what  happened  to  him. 

In  the  course  of  a  walk  through  the  rookery 
considerable  diversity  in  the  choice  of  nesting  sites 
was  to  be  noticed.  The  general  tendency  is  for 
the  penguins  to  build  their  nests  close  together 
(within  a  foot  or  two  of  one  another)  on  the  tops 
of  the  rounded  knolls,  the  lower  levels  being  left 
untenanted. 

The  most  thickly  populated  districts  were  to  be 
found  on  the  screes  immediately  below  the  cliffs. 
These  screes  having  been  formed  in  the  first  in- 
stance by  the  falling  of  fragments  due  to  weather- 
ing of  the  cliff,  their  substance  is  still  added  to, 
little  by  little,  as  time  goes  on,  and  therefore  many 
are  killed  annually  by  falling  rocks,  as  is  mentioned 
elsewhere,  but  weighing  against  this  danger  is  the 

69 


ADEL1E  PENGUINS 

advantage  the  cliff  offers  as  a  shelter  from  the 
E.S.E.  gales.  The  same  applies  to  the  nesting 
sites  up  the  cliff,  but  I  am  convinced  that  only  the 
love  of  climbing  can  account  for  the  extraordinary 
positions  chosen  by  some  of  the  birds.  Some  of 
the  nests  are  so  difficult  of  access  that  their 
occupants,  on  their  way  to  them,  may  be  seen 
sliding  backwards  down  the  little  glazed  snow- 
slopes  several  times  before  they  accomplish  the 
ascent,  whilst  in  other  places  they  have  to  jump 
from  one  foothold  to  another  along  the  almost 
perpendicular  cliff. 

Even  up  these  heights  a  tendency  to  grouping  is 
seen,  though  there  are  a  fair  number  of  individuals 
who,  seeming  to  seek  seclusion,  make  their  nests 
at  some  distance  from  the  others.  I  noticed  this 
in  some  places  along  the  shore,  too,  where  solitary 
nests  were  to  be  seen  on  isolated  patches  of 
shingle. 

When  I  visited  Cape  Royds  in  1911  I  found 
a  couple  nesting  alone  in  a  cove  known  as  "  Black 
Sand  Beach,"  some  half  mile  from  the  rookery 
there.  Such  isolation  as  this,  however,  is  very 
unusual,  and  was  quite  a  departure  from  the 
regular  custom  of  the  species. 

In  some  places  at  Cape  Adare,  large  rocks  some 
70 


FIG.  44.     "WHEN  THKY  SUCCEEDED  IN  PUSHING  ONE   OF 

THEIR  NUMBER   OVER,  ALL   WOULD   CUANE  THEIR 

NECKS   OVER  THE   EDGE" 

(Page  83) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

two  or  three  feet  in  height  stood  about  the  rookery. 
Whenever  the  summit  of  one  of  these  was  acces- 
sible, a  pair  built  their  nest  upon  it,*  though  how 
they  managed  to  keep  up  there  during  the  gales 
was  a  matter  for  wonder,  but  the  proud  possessors 
of  the  castle  evidently  had  a  delight  in  their  lofty 
position.  One  nest  had  been  made  on  an  old 
packing-case  left  by  the  expedition  which  wintered 
there  in  189 4,  and  several  nested  among  the  weather- 
ing bones  of  the  seals  that  had  died  on  the  beach. 

Although  the  greatest  care  had  been  taken 
by  nearly  all  in  the  choice  of  sites  that  would  be  on 
dry  ground  when  the  thaw  came  later  in  the 
season,  yet  a  few  hens  had  gone  to  the  other 
extreme,  and  with  greatest  stupidity  chosen  their 
site  right  down  in  the  hollows  where  they  were 
absolutely  certain  to  be  flooded  later  on.  These 
stupid  ones  are  thus  prevented  from  rearing  their 
young,  and  so  selection  keeps  the  wiser  for  future 
generations,  and  eliminates  the  less  intelligent  from 
the  community,  though  perhaps  some  of  these  learn 
by  experience,  and  next  year  use  more  discrimina- 
tion in  choosing  their  nesting  place. 

Some  of  the  colonies — in  fact,  most  of  them— 
were  orderly  and  well  arranged,  and  later  in  the 

*  Fig.  37. 

71 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

season  distinctly  peaceful.  Others,  however,  pre- 
sented a  less  respectable  appearance.  There  was 
one  in  particular,  close  to  our  hut,  which  could 
only  be  described  as  a  slum  of  the  meanest  de- 
scription. All  through  the  season  there  was  more 
fighting  in  this  colony  than  anywhere  else,  and 
so  remarkable  was  this,  that  we  christened  the 
locality  "  Casey's  Court "  and  the  name  stuck 
for  the  rest  of  the  year. 

The  nests  had  fewer  stones  than  elsewhere, 
and  were  more  untidily  made,  and  when  the  eggs 
came,  owing  to  the  constant  fighting  that  went  on, 
most  of  them  got  spilt  from  the  nests  or  broken, 
and  very  few  chicks  were  hatched  in  consequence, 
the  mortality  among  them  also  being  so  great  that 
of  the  whole  colony  of  some  hundred  nests,  I 
do  not  think  more  than  forty  or  fifty  chicks  at 
most  reached  maturity.  The  explanation  of  this 
state  of  things  lay,  I  believe,  in  the  fact  that 
our  hut  and  its  curtilage  deflected  the  stream 
of  penguins  on  their  way  past  the  spot  from  the 
water  to  the  back  of  the  rookery,  so  that  a  constant 
stream  of  them  passed  through  "  Casey's  Court," 
upsetting  the  tempers  of  the  inhabitants  so  that 
they  became  disorderly.  In  addition  to  this,  there 
was  a  fairly  big  thaw  pool  and  much  miry  ground 
72 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

near   by,   so   that    the  inhabitants  were  generally 
covered  with  mud  and  very  disreputable  to  look  at. 

During  the  fasting  season,  as  none  of  the  penguins 
had  entered  the  water,  they  all  became  very  dirty 
and  disreputable  in  appearance,  as  well  may  be 
imagined  considering  the  life  they  led,  but  now 
that  they  went  regularly  to  swim,  they  immediately 
got  back  their  sleek  and  spotless  state. 

From  the  ice-foot  to  the  open  water,  the  half 
mile  or  so  of  sea-ice  presented  a  lively  scene  as 
the  thousands  of  birds  passed  to  and  fro  over 
it,  outward  bound  parties  of  dirty  birds  from  the 
rookery  passing  the  spruce  bathers,  homeward 
bound  after  their  banquet  and  frolic  in  the  sea.  So 
interesting  and  instructive  was  it  to  watch  the 
bathing  parties,  that  we  spent  whole  days  in  this 
way. 

As  I  have  said  before,  the  couples  took  turn  and 
turn  about  on  the  nest,  one  remaining  to  guard  and 
incubate  while  the  other  went  off  to  the  water. 

On  leaving  their  nests,  the  birds  made  their  way 
down  the  ice-foot  on  to  the  sea-ice.  Here  they 
would  generally  wait  about  and  join  up  with  others 
until  enough  had  gathered  together  to  make  up 
a  decent  little  party,  which  would  then  set  off 
gaily  for  the  water.  They  were  now  in  the  greatest 

73 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

possible  spirits,  chattering  loudly  and  frolicking 
with  one  another,  and  playfully  chasing  each  other 
about,  occasionally  indulging  in  a  little  friendly 
sparring  with  their  flippers. 

Arrived  at  length  at  the  water's  edge,  almost 
always  the  same  procedure  was  gone  through.  The 
object  of  every  bird  in  the  party  seemed  to  be 
to  get  one  of  the  others  to  enter  the  water  first. 
They  would  crowd  up  to  the  very  edge  of  the  ice, 
dodging  about  and  trying  to  push  one  another 
in.  Sometimes  those  behind  nearly  would  succeed 
in  pushing  the  front  rank  in,  who  then  would 
just  recover  themselves  in  time,  and  rushing  round 
to  the  rear,  endeavour  to  turn  the  tables  on  the 
others.  Occasionally  one  actually  would  get  pushed 
in,  only  to  turn  quickly  under  water  and  bound  out 
again  on  to  the  ice  like  a  cork  shot  out  of  a  bottle. 
Then  for  some  time  they  would  chase  one  another 
about,  seemingly  bent  on  having  a  good  game,  each 
bird  intent  on  finding  any  excuse  from  being 
the  first  in.  Sometimes  this  would  last  a  few 
minutes,  sometimes  for  the  better  part  of  an  hour, 
until  suddenly  the  whole  band  would  change  its 
tactics,  and  one  of  the  number  start  to  run  at 
full  tilt  along  the  edge  of  the  ice,  the  rest  following 
closely  on  his  heels,  until  at  last  he  would  take 
74 


&   f 

•** 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

a  clean  header  into  the  water.  One  after  another 
the  rest  of  the  party  followed  him  (Fig.  38), 
all  taking  off  exactly  from  the  spot  where  he 
had  entered,  and  following  one  another  so  quickly 
as  to  have  the  appearance  of  a  lot  of  shot  poured 
out  of  a  bottle  into  the  water.  The  accompanying 
photograph  presents  this  last  scene. 

A  dead  silence  would  ensue  till  a  few  seconds 
later,  when  they  would  all  come  to  the  surface 
some  twenty  or  thirty  yards  out,  and  start  rolling 
about  and  splashing  in  the  water,  cleaning  them- 
selves and  making  sounds  exactly  like  a  lot  of  boys 
calling  out  and  chaffing  one  another. 

So  extraordinary  was  this  whole  scene,  that  on 
first  witnessing  it  we  were  overcome  with  astonish- 
ment, and  it  seemed  to  us  almost  impossible  that 
the  little  creatures,  whose  antics  we  were  watching, 
were  actually  birds  and  not  human  beings.  Seem- 
ingly reluctant  as  they  had  been  to  enter  the  water, 
when  once  there  they  evinced  every  sign  of  enjoy- 
ment, and  would  stay  in  for  hours  at  a  time. 

As  may  be  imagined,  the  penguins  spent  a  great 
deal  of  time  on  their  way  to  and  from  the  water, 
especially  during  the  earlier  period  before  the  sea- 
ice  had  broken  away  from  the  ice-foot,  as  they  had 
so  far  to  walk  before  arriving  at  the  open  leads. 

75 


ADfiLIE  PENGUINS 

As  a  band  of  spotless  bathers  returning  to  the 
rookery,  their  white  breasts  and  black  backs 
glistening  with  a  fine  metallic  lustre  in  the  sun- 
light, met  a  dirty  and  bedraggled  party  on  its  way 
out  from  the  nesting  ground,  frequently  both 
would  stop,  and  the  clean  and  dirty  mingle 
together  and  chatter  with  one  another  for  some 
minutes.  If  they  were  not  speaking  words  in 
some  language  of  their  own,  their  whole  appear- 
ance belied  them,  and  as  they  stood,  some  in  pairs, 
some  in  groups  of  three  or  more,  chattering  amic- 
ably together,  it  became  evident  that  they  were 
sociable  animals,  glad  to  meet  one  another,  and, 
like  many  men,  pleased  with  the  excuse  to  forget 
for  a  while  their  duties  at  home,  where  their  mates 
were  waiting  to  be  relieved  for  their  own  spell  off 
the  nests. 

After  a  variable  period  of  this  intercourse,  the 
two  parties  would  separate  and  continue  on  their 
respective  ways,  a  clean  stream  issuing  from  the 
crowd  in  the  direction  of  the  rookery,  a  dirty  one 
heading  off  towards  the  open  water,  but  here  it 
was  seen  that  a  few  who  had  bathed  and  fed, 
and  were  already  perhaps  half-way  home,  had  been 
persuaded  to  turn  and  accompany  the  others,  and 
so  back  they  would  go  again  over  the  way  they 
76 


had  come,  to  spend  a  few  more  hours  in  skylarking 
and  splashing  about  in  the  sea. 

In  speaking  of  these  games  of  the  penguins,  I 
wish  to  lay  emphasis  on  the  fact  that  these  hours 
of  relaxation  play  a  large  part  in  their  lives  during 
the  advanced  part  of  the  breeding  period.  They 
would  spend  hours  in  playing  at  a  sort  of  "  touch 
last "  on  the  sea-ice  near  the  water's  edge.  They 
never  played  on  the  ground  of  the  rookery  itself, 
but  only  on  the  sea-ice  and  the  ice-foot  and  in  the 
water,  and  I  may  here  mention  another  favourite 
pastime  of  theirs.  I  have  said  that  the  tide 
flowed  past  the  rookery  at  the  rate  of  some  five  or 
six  knots.  Small  ice-floes  are  continually  drifting 
past  in  the  water,  and  as  one  of  these  arrived  at 
the  top  of  the  ice-foot,  it  would  be  boarded  by  a 
crowd  of  penguins,  sometimes  until  it  could  hold 
no  more.  (Fig.  39.)  This  "excursion  boat,"  as 
we  used  to  call  it,  would  float  its  many  occupants 
down  the  whole  length  of  the  ice-foot,  and  if 
it  passed  close  to  the  edge,  those  that  rode  on 
the  floes  would  shout  at  the  knots  of  penguins 
gathered  along  the  ice-foot  (Fig.  40)  who  would 
shout  at  them  in  reply,  so  that  a  gay  bantering 
seemed  to  accompany  their  passage  past  the 
rookery. 

77 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

Arrived  at  the  farther  end,  some  half  a  mile 
lower  down,  those  on  the  "  excursion  boat "  had 
perforce  to  leave  it,  all  plunging  into  the  tide  and 
swimming  against  this  until  they  came  to  the  top 
again,  then  boarded  a  fresh  floe  for  another  ride 
down.  All  day  these  floes,  often  crowded  to  their 
utmost  capacity,  would  float  past  the  rookery. 
Often  a  knot  of  hesitating  penguins  on  the  ice- 
foot, on  being  hailed  by  a  babel  of  voices  from  a 
floe,  would  suddenly  make  the  plunge,  and  all 
swim  off  to  join  their  friends  for  the  rest  of  the 
journey,  and  I  have  seen  a  floe  so  crowded  that  as 
a  fresh  party  boarded  it  on  one  side,  many  were 
pushed  off  the  other  side  into  the  water  by  the 
crush. 

Once,  as  we  stood  watching  the  penguins  bath- 
ing, one  of  them  popped  out  of  the  water  on  to  the 
ice  with  a  large  pebble  in  its  mouth,  which  it  had 
evidently  fetched  from  the  bottom.  This  surprised 
me,  as  the  depth  of  the  sea  here  was  some  ten 
fathoms  at  least.  The  bird  simply  dropped  the 
stone  on  the  ice  and  then  dived  in  again,  so  that 
evidently  he  had  gone  to  all  the  trouble  of  diving 
for  the  stone  simply  for  the  pleasure  of  doing  it. 
Mr.  J.  H.  Gurney,  in  his  book  on  the  gannet,  says 
they  (gannets)  are  said  to  have  got  themselves 
78 


FIG.  48.     DIVING  FLAT 


FIG.    in.     ADKLIGS  "PORPOISING' 


80) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

entangled  in  fishing-nets  at  a  depth  of  180  ft.  and 
that  their  descent  to  a  depth  of  90  ft.  is  quite 
authentic,  so  that  perhaps  the  depth  of  this  pen- 
guin's dive  was  not  an  unusual  one. 

The  tide  at  the  open  water  leads  where  they 
bathed  ran  a  good  six  knots,  but  the  Adelies  swam 
quite  easily  against  this  without  leaving  the  surface. 

In  the  water,  as  on  the  land,  they  have  two  means 
of  progression.  The  first  is  by  swimming  as  a  duck 
swims,  excepting  that  they  lie  much  lower  in  the 
water  than  a  duck  does,  the  top  of  the  back  being 
submerged,  so  that  the  neck  sticks  up  out  of  the 
water.  As  their  feet  are  very  slightly  webbed,  they 
have  not  the  advantages  that  a  duck  or  gull  has 
when  swimming  in  this  way,  but  supplement  their 
foot-work  by  short  quick  strokes  of  their  flippers. 
This  they  are  easily  able  to  do,  owing  to  the  depth 
to  which  the  breast  sinks  in  the  water. 

The  second  method  is  by  "porpoising." 

This  consists  in  swimming  under  water,  using 
the  wings  or  "  flippers  "  for  propulsion,  the  action  of 
these  limbs  being  practically  the  same  as  they  would 
be  in  flying.  As  their  wings  are  beautifully  shaped 
for  swimming,  and  their  pectoral  muscles  extraor- 
dinarily powerful,  they  attain  great  speed,  besides 
which  they  are  as  nimble  as  fish,  being  able  com- 

79 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

pletely  to  double  in  their  tracks  in  the  flash  of  a 
moment.  In  porpoising,  after  travelling  thirty  feet 
or  so  under  water,  they  rise  from  it,  shooting  clean 
out  with  an  impetus  that  carries  them  a  couple  of 
yards  in  the  air,  then  with  an  arch  of  the  back  they 
are  head  first  into  the  water  again,  swimming  a  few 
more  strokes,  then  out  again,  and  so  on. 

I  show  a  photograph  of  them  doing  this  (Fig. 
49). 

Perhaps  the  most  surprising  feat  of  which  the 
Adelie  is  capable  is  seen  when  it  leaps  from  the 
water  on  to  the  ice.  We  saw  this  best  later  in  the 
year  when  the  sea-ice  had  broken  away  from  the  ice- 
foot, so  that  open  water  washed  against  the  ice  cliff 
bounding  the  land.  This  little  cliff  rose  sheer  from 
the  water  at  first,  but  later,  by  the  action  of  the 
waves,  was  under-cut  for  some  six  feet  or  more  in 
places,  so  that  the  ledge  of  ice  at  the  top  hung  for- 
wards over  the  water.  The  height  of  most  of  this 
upper  ledge  varied  from  three  to  six  feet. 

Whilst  in  the  water  the  penguins  usually  hunted 
and  played  in  parties,  just  as  they  had  entered  it, 
though  a  fair  number  of  solitary  individuals  were 
also  to  be  seen.  When  a  party  had  satisfied  their 
appetites  and  their  desire  for  play,  they  would  swim 
to  a  distance  of  some  thirty  to  forty  yards  from  the 
80 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

ice-foot,  when  they  might  be  seen  all  to  stretch 
their  necks  up  and  take  a  good  look  at  the  proposed 
landing-place.  Having  done  this,  every  bird  would 
suddenly  disappear  beneath  the  surface,  not  a 
ripple  showing  which  direction  they  had  taken,  till 
suddenly,  sometimes  in  a  bunch,  sometimes  in  a 
stream,  one  after  the  other  they  would  all  shoot 
out  of  the  water,  clean  up  on  to  the  top  of  the  ice- 
foot. (Figs.  41  and  42.)  Several  times  I  measured 
the  distance  from  the  surface  of  the  water  to  the 
ledge  on  which  they  landed,  and  the  highest  leap 
I  recorded  was  exactly  five  feet.  The  "  take  off" 
was  about  four  feet  out  from  the  edge,  the  whole 
of  the  necessary  impetus  being  gained  as  the  bird 
approached  beneath  the  water. 

The  most  important  thing  to  note  about  this 
jumping  from  the  water  was  the  accuracy  with 
which  they  invariably  rose  at  precisely  the  right 
moment,  the  exact  distance  being  judged  during 
their  momentary  survey  of  a  spot  from  a  distance, 
before  they  dived  beneath  the  water,  and  carried  in 
their  minds  as  they  approached  the  ice.  I  am  sure 
that  this  impression  was  all  they  had  to  guide  them, 
as  with  a  ripple  on  the  water,  and  at  the  pace  they 
were  going,  they  could  not  possibly  have  seen  their 
landing-place  at  all  clearly  as  they  approached  it, 

F  81 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

besides  which,  in  many  cases,  the  ledge  of  ice  on 
which  they  landed  projected  many  feet  forwards 
from  the  surface,  yet  I  never  saw  them  misjudge 
their  distance  so  as  to  come  up  under  the  over- 
hanging ledge. 

During  their  approach  they  swam  at  an  even 
distance  of  about  three  or  four  feet  beneath  the 
surface,  projecting  themselves  upwards  by  a  sudden 
upward  bend  of  the  body,  at  the  same  time  using 
their  tail  as  a  helm,  in  the  manner  well  shown  in 
one  of  my  photographs,  in  which  one  of  the 
birds  is  seen  in  the  air  at  the  moment  it  left  the 
water,  the  tail  being  bent  sharply  up  towards  the 
back. 

Their  quickness  of  perception  is  shown  very  well 
as  they  land  on  the  ice.  If  the  surface  is  composed 
of  snow,  and  so  affords  them  a  good  foothold,  they 
throw  their  legs  well  forward  and  land  on  their 
feet,  as  shown  in  Figs.  41  and  42,  but  should  they 
find  themselves  landing  on  a  slippery  ice-surface, 
they  throw  themselves  forward,  landing  on  their 
breasts  in  the  tobogganing  position  as  shown  in 
Fig.  43. 

The  Adelies  dive  very  beautifully.  We  did  not 
see  this  at  first,  before  the  sea-ice  had  gone  out, 
because  to  enter  the  water  they  had  only  to  drop 
82 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

a  few  inches,  but  later,  when  entering  from  the  ice 
terraces,  we  constantly  saw  them  making  the  most 
graceful  dives. 

At  the  place  where  they  most  often  went  in,  a 
long  terrace  of  ice  about  six  feet  in  height  ran  for 
some  hundreds  of  yards  along  the  edge  of  the  water, 
and  here,  just  as  on  the  sea-ice,  crowds  would  stand 
near  the  brink.  When  they  had  succeeded  in 
pushing  one  of  their  number  over,  all  would  crane 
their  necks  over  the  edge  (Fig.  44),  and  when 
they  saw  the  pioneer  safe  in  the  water,  the  rest 
followed. 

When  diving  into  shallow  water  they  fall  flat 
(Figs.  45, 46,  and  47),  but  into  deep  water,  and  from 
any  considerable  height,  they  assume  the  most  per- 
fect positions  (Fig.  50)  and  make  very  little  splash. 
Occasionally  we  saw  them  stand  hesitating  to  dive 
at  a  height  of  some  twenty  feet,  but  generally  they 
descended  to  some  lower  spot,  and  did  not  often 
dive  from  such  a  height,  but  twelve  feet  was  no 
uncommon  dive  for  them. 

The  reluctance  shown  by  each  individual  of  a 
party  of  intending  bathers  to  be  the  first  to  enter 
the  water  may  partly  have  been  explained  when, 
later  on,  we  discovered  that  a  large  number  of 
sea-leopards  were  gathered  in  the  sea  in  the  neigh- 

83 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

bourhood  of  the  rookery  to  prey  on  the  penguins. 
These  formidable  animals,  of  which  I  show  some 
photographs,  used  to  lurk  beneath  the  overhanging 
ledges  of  the  ice-foot,  out  of  sight  of  the  birds 
on  the  ice  overhead.  (Fig.  51.)  They  lay  quite 
still  in  the  water,  only  their  heads  protruding,  until 
a  party  of  Adelies  would  descend  into  the  water 
almost  on  top  of  them,  when  with  a  sudden  dash 
and  snap  of  their  great  formidable  jaws,  they  would 
secure  one  of  the  birds. 

It  seemed  to  me  then,  that  all  the  chivvying 
and  preliminaries  which  they  went  through  before 
entering  the  water,  arose  mainly  from  a  desire  on 
the  part  of  each  penguin  to  get  one  of  its  neighbours 
to  go  in  first  in  order  to  prove  whether  the  coast 
was  clear  or  not,  though  all  this  manoeuvring  was 
certainly  taken  very  lightly,  and  quite  in  the  nature 
of  a  game.  This  indeed  was  not  surprising,  for  of 
all  the  animals  of  which  I  have  had  any  experience, 
I  think  the  Adelie  penguin  is  the  very  bravest. 
The  more  we  saw  of  them  the  fonder  we  became 
of  them  and  the  more  we  admired  their  indomitable 
courage.  The  appearance  of  a  sea-leopard  in  their 
midst  was  the  one  thing  that  caused  them  any  panic. 
With  dozens  of  these  enemies  about  they  would 
gambol  in  the  sea  in  the  most  light-hearted  manner, 
84 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

but  the  appearance  of  one  among  them  was  the 
signal  for  a  stampede,  but  even  this  was  invariably 
gone  through  in  an  orderly  manner  with  some  show 
of  reason,  for,  porpoising  off  in  a  clump,  they  at 
once  spread  themselves  out,  scattering  in  a  fan- 
shaped  formation  as  they  sped  away,  instead  of 
all  following  the  same  direction. 

As  far  as  I  could  judge,  however,  the  sea-leopards 
are  a  trifle  faster  in  the  water  than  the  Adelies,  as 
one  of  them  occasionally  would  catch  up  with  one 
of  the  fugitives,  who  then,  realizing  that  speed  alone 
would  not  avail  him,  started  dodging  from  side  to 
side,  and  sometimes  swam  rapidly  round  and  round 
in  a  circle  of  about  twelve  feet  diameter  for  a  full 
minute  or  more,  doubtless  knowing  that  he  was 
quicker  in  turning  than  his  great  heavy  pursuer,  but 
exhaustion  would  overtake  him  in  the  end,  and  we 
could  see  the  head  and  jaws  of  the  great  sea-leopard 
rise  to  the  surface  as  he  grabbed  his  victim.  The 
sight  of  a  panic-stricken  little  Adelie  tearing  round 
and  round  in  this  manner  was  a  sadly  common 
sight  late  in  the  season. 

Sea-leopards  are  no  mean  customers  and  should 
be  treated  with  caution.  Commander  Campbell 
and  I  used  to  hunt  them  from  a  little  Norwegian 
pram  (a  species  of  dinghy)  which  we  rowed  quietly 

85 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

up  and  down  close  under  the  ice-foot,  shooting  at 
the  sea-leopards  with  a  rifle  when  we  saw  their 
heads  above  water. 

One  day  we  had  an  interesting  little  adventure. 
We  had  shot  and  killed  one,  a  fine  bull  about  ten  feet 
long,  which  had  sunk  to  the  bottom  in  some  five 
fathoms.  Having  just  pulled  away  from  him,  we 
were  about  ten  yards  from  the  ice-foot,  when  another 
very  large  sea-leopard  overtook  us,  swimming  from 
the  direction  of  the  dead  bull.  It  passed  under  the 
pram,  bumping  against  the  keel  in  doing  so. 
When  about  ten  yards  ahead  of  us  it  turned 
and  made  straight  back  for  us,  but  as  we  were 
bows-on  to  it,  it  came  right  alongside  the  boat, 
churning  up  the  water  and  wetting  us.  At  this 
moment  it  turned  on  its  side,  its  right  fore- flipper 
beating  the  surface  and  its  belly  towards  us,  and 
was  just  starting  to  rear  its  head  up  when  we  both 
lunged  at  it  with  our  paddles,  and  so  pushed  the 
little  boat  away  from  it.  This  brought  us  alongside 
the  ice-foot,  from  which  Campbell  got  a  shot  at  it 
half  a  minute  later,  and  wounded  it  in  the  neck. 
The  moment  after  we  lunged  at  it  with  our  paddles 
it  dived,  then  reappeared  ten  or  fifteen  yards  off, 
rearing  its  head  out  of  the  water,  and  it  was  at  this 
moment  that  Campbell  shot  it.  After  this  it 
86 


FIG.  53.    A  SEA-LEOPARD   10  FT.  6l  INS.  LONG 


'  *? 


FIG.  54.     A  YOUNG  SEA-LEOPAHD  ON  SEA-ICE 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

reappeared  several  times  at  the  surface,  but  drifted 
away  with  the  tide  and  we  lost  it. 

The  sea-leopard  has  not  a  reputation  for  attacking 
men  in  boats,  and  this  one  may  have  been  actuated 
by  curiosity  merely,  but  in  favour  of  its  meaning  to 
attack  us  were,  first,  that  it  came  to  us  straight 
from  the  direction  of  the  dead  bull  we  had  shot, 
and  secondly,  that  it  seems  hardly  likely  that  after 
bumping  against  our  keel,  mere  curiosity  could 
have  tempted  it  to  come  back  and  try  to  look  over 
the  gunwale !  As  a  rule  we  had  to  drift  very 
quietly  along  when  hunting  sea-leopards,  as  the 
slightest  sound  frightened  them  away. 

All  that  we  could  do  to  protect  our  friends  was 
to  shoot  as  many  of  these  sea-leopards  as  possible, 
but  though  we  may  have  made  some  difference, 
there  were  always  many  about. 

Some  idea  of  the  depredations  committed  by 
these  animals  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  stomach  of  one  which  we  shot  I  found  the 
bodies  of  eighteen  penguins,  in  various  stages  of 
digestion,  the  beast's  intestines  being  literally 
stuffed  with  the  feathers  remaining  from  the  dis- 
integration of  many  more.  Photographs  of  these 
animals  are  seen  in  Figs.  52,  53,  and  54. 

Though  the  actual  presence  of  a  sea-leopard 

87 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

put  the  Addlies  to  confusion,  causing  them  to 
"  porpoise  "  madly  away  for  a  few  hundred  yards, 
yet  once  away  from  the  immediate  neighbourhood 
of  the  arch  enemy,  they  appeared  to  think  no  more 
of  him,  and  behaved  as  though  there  were  no 
further  need  for  anxiety,  though  probably  they 
kept  a  sharp  look-out  nevertheless.  Evidence 
goes  to  show  that  the  sea-leopard  is  the  only  living 
enemy,  excepting  man,  that  threatens  the  life  of 
the  adult  Adelie  penguin. 

One  day,  as  I  watched  some  hundreds  of  Adelies 
bathing  in  an  open  lead,  suddenly  the  back  of  an 
enormous  killer- whale  (Orca  gladiator]  rose  above 
the  surface  as  it  crossed  the  lead  from  side  to  side, 
appearing  from  beneath  the  ice  on  one  side  and 
disappearing  beneath  it  on  the  other.  To  my 
surprise,  not  the  slightest  fear  was  shown  by  the 
birds  in  the  water.  Had  this  beast  been  a  sea- 
leopard,  there  would  have  been  a  stampede,  and 
every  bird  have  leapt  from  the  water  on  to  the  sea- 
ice.  On  this  evidence  I  formed  the  opinion  that  in 
all  probability  killer- whales  do  no  harm  to  Adelie 
penguins ;  later  I  saw  it  confirmed,  when  a  school 
of  killers  shaved  close  past  several  floes  that  were 
crowded  with  Adelies,  and  made  not  the  least 
attempt  to  get  at  them,  as  they  might  so  easily 
88 


o  a 


aa  H 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

have  done  by  upsetting  the  floes.     Very  probably 
this  is  because  the  agile  bird  can  escape  with  such 
ease  from  the  ponderous  whale,  and  fears  it  no  more 
than  a  terrier  fears  a  cow,  though  he  thinks  twice    i 
before  coming  within  reach  of  its  jaws. 

When  the  sea-ice  had  gone  but,  leaving  open 
water  right  up  to  the  ice-foot,  a  ledge  of  ice  was 
left  along  the  western  side  of  the  rookery,  forming 
a  sort  of  terrace  or  "  front,"  with  its  sides  composed 
of  blue  ice,  rising  sheer  out  of  the  water  to  a  height 
of  some  six  feet  or  more  in  places.  From  this  point 
of  vantage  it  was  possible  to  stand  and  watch  the 
penguins  as  they  swam  in  the  clear  water  below, 
and  some  idea  was  formed  of  their  wonderful 
agility  when  swimming  beneath  the  surface.  As 
they  propelled  themselves  along  with  powerful 
strokes  of  their  wings,  they  swerved  from  side  to 
side  to  secure  the  little  prawn-like  euphausia  which 
literally  swarm  everywhere  in  the  Antarctic  seas, 
affording  them  ample  food  at  all  times.  Their 
gluttonous  habits  here  became  very  evident.  They 
would  gobble  euphausia  until  they  could  hold  no 
more,  only  to  vomit  the  whole  meal  into  the  water 
as  they  swam,  and  so  enlightened  start  to  feast 
again.  As  they  winged  their  way  along,  several 
feet  beneath  the  surface,  a  milky  cloud  would 

89 


ADfiLIE  PENGUINS 

suddenly  issue  from  their  mouths  and  drift  slowly 
away  down  stream,  as,  without  the  slightest  pause 
in  their  career,  they  dashed  eagerly  along  in  the 
hunt  for  more. 

When  a  penguin  returned  to  his  mate  on  the 
nest,  after  his  jaunt  in  the  sea,  much  formality  had 
to  be  gone  through  before  he  was  allowed  to  take 
charge  of  the  eggs.  This  ceremony  of  "relieving 
guard  "  almost  invariably  was  observed. 

Going  up  to  his  mate,  with  much  graceful  arching 
of  his  neck,  he  appeared  to  assure  her  in  guttural 
tones  of  his  readiness  to  take  charge  (Fig.  55). 
At  this  she  would  become  very  agitated,  replying 
with  raucous  staccato  notes,  and  refusing  to  budge 
from  her  position  on  the  eggs.  Then  both  would 
become  angry  for  a  while,  arguing  in  a  very  heated 
manner,  until  at  last  she  would  rise,  and,  standing 
by  the  side  of  the  nest,  allow  him  to  walk  on  to 
it,  which  he  immediately  did,  and  after  carefully 
placing  the  eggs  in  position,  sink  down  upon  them, 
afterwards  thrusting  his  bill  beneath  his  breast  to 
push  them  gently  into  a  comfortable  position. 
After  staying  by  him  for  a  little  while,  the  other 
at  length  would  go  off  to  bathe  and  feed. 

The  length  of  time  during  which  each  bird  was 
away  varied  considerably,  but  a  "  watch  bill "  was 
90 


«       i          :•••*. 


Fic.  56.    "  THE  CHICKS  BE<;AN  TO  APPEAR' 
(A  TYPICAL  GROUP  OF  NESTS) 


FIG.  57.     AN  ADKLIE  HEINO  SICK 


94) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

kept  of  one   particular    pair   with   the   following 
result :  * 

Nov.  14.  Egg  laid.     Hen  sitting. 

Nov.  27.  A  cock  seen  to  join  the  hen  for  the 
first  time  since  the  14th.  He  took 
her  place  on  the  nest.  This  was  the 
first  day  on  which  any  red  guano 
was  seen  about  the  nest. 

Dec.  10.  The  hen  returned  between  8  P.M.  and 
10  P.M.,  having  been  absent  since 
November  27.  Fresh  red  guano: 
the  first  for  many  days. 

Dec.  14.  The  cock  relieved  the  hen  between 
8  A.M.  and  10  A.M. 

Dec.  15.  The  hen  relieved  the  cock  between 
8  A.M.  and  10  A.M.  Between  6  P.M. 
and  8  P.M.  the  chick  was  hatched,  the 
hen  remaining  on  the  nest. 

Dec.  17.  At  8  A.M.  the  cock  was  found  to  have 
relieved  the  hen. 

Dec.  18.  Hen  mounted  guard  between  6  P.M. 
and  8  P.M. 

Dec.  20.  Cock  relieved  guard  about  8  A.M.     At 

*  This  "  watch-bill  "  was  kindly  kept  for  me  by  Mr.  Priestly  on 
his  meteorological  rounds,  the  nests  being  near  the  thermometer 
screen. 

91 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

8  P.M.  both  cock  and  hen  were  at 
the  nest,  the  hen  standing  by  it,  the 
cock  on  it. 

Dec.  21.  The  hen  relieved  guard  at  8  P.M. 

Dec.  23.  Cock  came  back  at  noon  and  relieved 
guard. 

Dec.  24.  The  cock  remained  on  guard  all  day. 
The  hen  was  gone  from  1  P.M.  till  6 
P.M., when  she  returned  and  relieved 
guard. 

Dec.  25.  8  A.M.  Both  at  nest,  hen  still  on. 
10  A.M.  changed  guard.  Hen  gone. 

Dec.  26.  Hen  on  nest.     Cock  standing  near. 

Dec.  27.  8  A.M.     Cock  on  nest. 

Dec.  28.  8  A.M.     Hen  on  nest. 

Dec.  29.  Cock  relieved  guard. 

Dec.  30.  Hen  arrived  3  P.M.  and  relieved  guard. 

Dec.  31.  10  P.M  to  midnight,  changed,  cock  on. 
Both  there  at  10  P.M. 

Jan.     1.  10  A.M.     Both  at  nest. 

12  noon.  Both  at  nest.  The  youngster 
complicating  matters  by  running 
away  every  time  he  was  passed  by 
the  observer,  thus  getting  himself 
and  his  parents  embroiled  with  the 
neighbours. 
92 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

Jan.     1.     2  P.M.     Hen  on  nest.     Cock  gone. 
Jan.     2.  10  A.M.     Hen  on  nest. 

12  noon.  Chick  disappeared. 

2  P.M.     Nest  deserted. 

4  P.M.     Cock  on  nest.     No  chick. 

8  P.M.     Cock  on  nest.     No  chick. 
Jan.     3.  Cock  on  the  nest  with  the  chick. 

From  the  above  Table  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
hen  was  not  relieved  by  the  cock  until  a  fortnight 
after  she  had  laid  her  egg  (in  this  case  there  was 
only  one)  so  that  probably  she  had  been  without 
food  for  a  month.  Then  she  left,  and  only  returned 
to  relieve  the  cock  after  the  lapse  of  another  fort- 
night, it  being  worth  remarking  that  each  was 
absent  for  the  same  length  of  time.  When  the 
chick  was  hatched,  a  different  regime  began,  as  of 
course  the  chick  had  to  be  fed  and  journeys  to  the 
sea  made  at  regular  intervals  for  the  purpose  of 
getting  food. 

When  the  chicks  began  to  appear  all  over  the 
rookery  (Fig.  56),  a  marked  change  was  noticed  in 
the  appearance  of  the  parents  as  they  made  their 
way  on  foot  from  the  water's  edge  to  the  nests. 
Hitherto  they  had  been  merely  remarkable  for 
their  spotless  and  glistening  plumage,  but  now  they 

93 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

were  bringing  with  them  food  for  the  young,  and 
so  distended  were  their  stomachs  with  this,  that 
they  had  to  lean  backward  as  they  walked,  to 
counterbalance  their  bulging  bellies,  and  in  conse- 
quence frequently  tripped  over  the  inequalities  of 
the  ground  which  were  thus  hidden  from  their  gaze. 
What  with  the  exertion  of  tramping  with  their 
burden  across  the  rookery,  and  perhaps  on  rare 
occasions  one  or  two  little  disputes  with  other 
penguins  by  the  way,  frequently  they  were  in  some 
distress  before  they  reached  their  destination,  and 
quite  commonly  they  would  be  sick  and  bring  up 
the  whole  offering  before  they  got  there.  Conse- 
quently, little  red  heaps  of  mashed  up  and  half 
digested  euphausia  were  to  be  seen  about  the 
rookery.  Once  I  saw  a  penguin,  after  he  had 
actually  reached  the  nest,  quite  unable  to  wait  for 
the  chick  to  help  itself  in  the  usual  manner,  deposit 
the  lot  upon  the  ground  in  front  of  his  mate.  I  saw 
what  was  coming  and  secured  the  accompanying 
photograph  of  the  incident.  (Fig.  57.)  When 
this  happens  the  food  is  wasted,  as  neither  chick 
nor  adult  will  touch  it  however  hungry  they  may 
be,  the  former  only  feeding  by  the  natural  method 
of  pushing  his  head  down  the  throat  of  a  parent,  and 
so  helping  himself  direct  from  the  gullet.  (Fig.  58. ) 
94 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

When  the  chicks  are  small  they  are  kept  com- 
pletely covered  by  the  parent  who  sits  on  the  nest. 
They  grow,  however,  at  an  enormous  rate,  gobbling 
vast  quantities  of  food  as  it  is  brought  to  them, 
their  elastic  bellies  seeming  to  have  no  limit  to  their 
capacity  (Fig.  59) ;  indeed,  when  standing,  they 
rest  on  a  sort  of  tripod,  formed  by  the  protuberant 
belly  in  front  and  the  two  feet  behind. 

I  weighed  a  chick  at  intervals  for  some  time,  and 
this  was  the  astonishing  result  : 

Ounces 

The  egg.      .   .,        .         .  4 '56 

The  chick  when  hatched  3-00 

Five  days  old .         .         .  13-00 

Six           „       ...         .  15-75 

Eight       „       .       '.,,.,      .  24-75 

Nine         „     '.       '..        .  28-50 

Eleven     „       .        Y;      .  37*75 

Twelve     „       .      '' ,. .      .  42-50 

To  see  an  Adelie  chick  of  a  fortnight's  growth 
trying  to  get  itself  covered  by  its  mother  is  a  most 
ludicrous  sight.  The  most  it  can  hope  for  is  to  get 
its  head  under  cover,  the  rest  of  its  body  being 
exposed  to  the  air;  but  the  downy  coat  of  the  chick 
is  close  and  warm,  and  suffices  in  all  weathers  to 
protect  it  from  the  cold.  Fig.  60  illustrates  what 

95 


AD^LIE  PENGUINS 

I  have  said  very  well,  whilst  Fig.  61  shows  a  mother 
with  a  chick  twelve  days  old. 

Whilst  the  chicks  are  small  the  two  parents 
manage  to  keep  them  fed  without  much  difficulty;* 
but  as  one  of  them  has  always  to  remain  at  the 
nest  to  keep  the  chicks  warm,  guard  them  from 
skuas  and  hooligan  cocks,  and  prevent  them  from 
straying,  only  one  is  free  to  go  for  food.  Later  on, 
however,  two  other  factors  introduce  themselves. 
The  first  of  these  is  that  the  chick's  downy  coats 
become  thick  enough  to  protect  them  from  cold 
without  the  warmth  of  the  parent ;  and  the  second 
that  as  the  chicks  grow  they  require  an  ever- 
increasing  quantity  of  food,  and  at  the  age  of  about 
a  fortnight  this  demand  becomes  too  great  for  one 
bird  to  cope  with.  At  this  time  it  is  still  necessary 
to  prevent  the  chicks  from  straying  and  to  protect 
them  from  the  skuas  and  "  hooligans,"  and  so  to 
meet  these  two  demands  a  most  interesting  social 
system  is  developed.  The  individual  care  of  the 
chicks  by  their  parents  is  abandoned,  and  in  place 
of  this,  colonies  start  to  "  pool "  their  offspring, 
which  are  herded  together  into  clumps  or  "  creches," 
each  of  which  is  guarded  by  a  few  old  birds,  the 
rest  being  free  to  go  and  forage. 

*  Fig.  62. 
96 


I 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

It  is  quite  likely  that  if  a  chick  which  has  escaped 
from  its  own  creche  joins  another  creche  it  will  get 
fed  there,  as  it  seems  hardly  possible  for  the  adults 
to  recognize  the  individuals  of  so  large  a  gathering 
and  to  detect  a  stranger  should  one  turn  up,  but 
there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  old  birds 
work  for  their  own  creches  only,  and  remain  faith- 
ful to  them  for  the  rest  of  the  season,  because,  as 
they  make  their  way  across  the  rookery,  laden  with 
the  food  they  are  bringing  from  the  sea,  it  is  sadly 
common  to  see  them  pursued  by  strayed  and 
starving  youngsters,  plaintively  piping  their  prayers 
for  a  meal ;  and  these  appeals  are  always  made  in 
vain,  the  old  birds  turning  a  deaf  ear  to  the 
youngsters,  who  at  last,  weary  and  weak,  give  up 
the  pursuit,  and  in  the  end  fall  a  prey  to  the  ever- 
watchful  skuas.  Further  evidence  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  chicks  at  the  very  back  of  the  rookery  and 
up  at  the  top  of  the  Cape  are  just  as  well  nourished 
as  those  nearer  the  water,  who  are  constantly  passed 
by  a  stream  of  food-laden  parents. 

Twice  already  I  have  mentioned  that  strayed 
chicks  fall  a  prey  to  "  hooligan "  cocks.  These 
hang  about  the  rookery  often  in  little  bands.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  season  there  are  very  few  of 
them,  but  later  they  increase  greatly,  do  much 

G  97 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

damage,  and  cause  a  great  deal  of  annoyance  to  the 
peaceful  inhabitants.  The  few  to  be  found  at  first 
probably  are  cocks  who  have  not  succeeded  in 
finding  mates,  and  consequently  are  "at  a  loose 
end."  Later  on,  as  their  numbers  are  so  greatly 
increased,  they  must  be  widowers,  whose  mates 
have  lost  their  lives  in  one  way  or  another. 

Many  of  the  colonies,  especially  those  nearer  the 
water,  are  plagued  by  little  knots  of  "  hooligans," 
who  hang  about  their  outskirts,  and  should  a  chick 
go  astray  it  stands  a  good  chance  of  losing  its  life  at 
their  hands.  The  crimes  which  they  commit  are 
such  as  to  find  no  place  in  this  book,  but  it  is 
interesting  indeed  to  note  that,  when  nature  intends 
them  to  find  employment,  these  birds,  like  men, 
degenerate  in  idleness. 

Some  way  back  I  made  some  allusion  to  the  way 
in  which  many  of  the  penguins  were  choosing  sites 
up  the  precipitous  sides  of  the  Cape  at  the  back  of 
the  rookery.  Later  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
this  was  purely  the  result  of  their  love  of  climbing. 
There  was  one  colony  at  the  very  summit  of  the 
Cape,*  whose  inhabitants  could  only  reach  their 
nests  by  a  long  and  trying  climb  to  the  top  and 
then  a  walk  of  some  hundred  yards  across  a  steep 

*  Fig.  70. 
98 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

snow  slope  hanging  over  the  very  brink  of  a  sheer 
drop  of  seven  hundred  feet  on  to  the  sea-ice. 

During  the  whole  of  the  time  when  they  were 
rearing  their  young,  these  mountaineers  had  to  make 
several  journeys  during  each  twenty-four  hours  to 
carry  their  enormous  belly fuls  of  euphausia  all  the 
way  from  the  sea  to  their  young  on  the  nests — a 
weary  climb  for  their  little  legs  and  bulky  bodies. 
The  greater  number  who  had  undertaken  this  did 
so  at  a  time  when  there  were  ample  spaces  unoccu- 
pied in  the  most  eligible  parts  of  the  rookery. 

I  have  mentioned  that  large  masses  of  ice  were 
stranded  by  the  sea  along  the  shores  of  the  rookery. 
These  fragments  of  bergs,  some  of  them  fifteen 
to  twenty  feet  in  height,  formed  a  miniature 
mountain  range  along  the  shore.  All  day  parties  of 
penguins  were  to  be  seen  assiduously  climbing  the 
steep  sides  of  this  little  range.  Time  after  time, 
when  half  way  up,  they  would  descend  to  try 
another  route,  and  often  when  with  much  pains 
one  had  scaled  a  slippery  incline,  he  would  come 
sliding  to  the  bottom,  only  to  pick  himself  up  and 
have  another  try.  (Fig.  03.) 

Generally,  this  climbing  was  done  by  small 
parties  who  had  clubbed  together,  as  they  generally 
do,  from  social  inclination.  It  was  not  unusual  for 

99 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

a  little  band  of  climbers  to  take  as  much  as  an 
hour  or  more  over  climbing  to  the  summit. 
Arrived  at  the  top  they  would  spend  a  variable 
period  there,  sometimes  descending  at  once,  some- 
times spending  a  considerable  time  there,  gazing 
contentedly  about  them,  or  peering  over  the  edge 
to  chatter  with  other  parties  below. 

Again,  about  half  a  mile  from  the  beach,  a  large 
berg  some  one  hundred  feet  in  height  was  grounded 
in  fairly  deep  water,  accessible  at  first  over  the  sea- 
ice,  but  later,  when  this  had  gone,  surrounded  by 
open  water.  Its  sides  were  sheer  except  on  one  side, 
which  sloped  steeply  from  the  water's  edge  to  the  top. 

From  the  time  when  they  first  went  to  the  sea  to 
feed  until  the  end  of  the  season,  there  was  a  con- 
tinual stream  of  penguins  ascending  and  descend- 
ing the  berg.  As  I  watched  them  through  glasses  I 
saw  that  they  had  worn  deep  paths  in  the  snow  from 
base  to  summit.  They  had  absolutely  nothing  to 
gain  by  going  to  all  this  trouble  but  the  pleasure 
they  seemed  to  derive  from  the  climb,  and  when 
at  the  top,  merely  had  a  good  look  round  and  came 
down  again. 

When  the  birds  were  arriving  at  the  rookery  I 
watched  for  those  who  were  to  nest  up  the  cliff,  and 
several  times  saw  birds  on  arriving  at  the  rookery 
100 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

make  for  the  heights  without  any  hesitation,  thread- 
ing their  way  almost  in  a  straight  line  through  the 
nests  to  the  screes  at  the  bottom  of  the  cliff,  and 
up  these  to  one  or  other  of  the  paths  leading  up  its 
side.  Probably  these  had  been  hatched  there,  or 
had  nested  there  before,  and  were  making  their 
way  to  their  old  haunts,  but  my  notes  on  their 
nesting  habits  go  to  show  that  the  cocks,  at  any 
rate,  cannot  keep  to  the  same  spot  during  succes- 
sive years.  It  is  the  hen  who  chooses  the  site,  and 
stays  on  it,  as  I  have  shown,  until  a  mate  comes  to 
her,  and  wins  her,  very  often  only  after  defeating 
many  other  competitors. 

The  waste  of  life  in  an  Adelie  rookery  is  very 
great,  and  is  due  to  the  following  causes : 

The  eggs. 
Skuas. 

Cocks  fighting  among  the  nests. 
Floods  from  thaw  water. 
Death  of  parents. 
Snow-drifts. 
Landslides. 

The  young  chicks. 
Skuas. 
Landslides. 

101 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

"  Hooligan  "  cocks. 
Getting  lost. 
Death  of  parents. 

Adults. 

Sea-leopards. 

Landslides. 

Snow-drifts. 

In  the  above  lists  I  have  made  no  mention  of 
the  wanton  depredations  committed — owing  to  the 
licence  given  to  ignorant  seamen — by  expeditions 
which  visit  the  Antarctic  from  time  to  time,  but  as 
these  visits  are  made  at  rare  intervals,  they  cannot 
greatly  affect  the  population. 

Some  of  the  items  in  my  list  require  explanation. 
The  screes  at  the  foot  of  the  cliff  at  Cape  Adare 
are  perhaps  the  most  thickly  populated  part  of 
the  rookery.  As  the  thaw  proceeds,  boulders  of 
different  sizes  are  continually  falling  down  the 
cliff,  some  of  them  for  many  hundreds  of  feet 
before  they  finally  plunge  in  among  the  nests  on 
the  screes,  doing  terrible  damage,  and  often  rolling 
some  distance  out  into  the  rookery.  At  other 
times,  owing  to  the  bursting  out  of  thaw  water 
which  has  been  dammed  up  at  the  top  of  the  clift 
102 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

large  landslides  are  caused  which  bury  many 
hundreds  of  nests  beneath  them.  In  fact,  these 
screes  on  which  the  nests  are  built  have  been 
formed  by  these  landslides  taking  place  from  year 
to  year,  and  no  doubt  form  the  graves  of  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  former  generations.  One  of 
these  slides  took  place  whilst  we  were  at  the 
rookery,  doing  terrible  damage.  A  crowded 
colony  of  Adelies  were  nesting  just  below,  and  the 
avalanche  passed  right  through  and  over  them, 
causing  the  most  sad  havoc.  We  found  hundreds 
of  injured  and  dying,  some  of  them  in  a  pitiable 
condition.  Several  were  completely  disembowelled, 
others  had  the  whole  skin  of  their  backs  torn  down 
and  hanging  behind  them  in  a  flap,  exposing  the 
bare  flesh.  Dozens  had  broken  or  dislocated  legs 
and  flippers. 

The  worst  feature  was  that  many  were  buried 
alive  beneath  the  snow,orpinned  down  to  the  ground 
by  masses  of  basalt.  1"  wice  I  saw  one  flipper  sticking 
out  of  the  snow,  moving  dismally,  and  dug  out  in 
each  case  a  badly  injured  bird  which  would  have 
lingered  perhaps  for  days,  because  loose  snow  does 
not  always  suffocate,  owing  to  the  amount  of  air 
contained  in  its  interstices,  and  to  the  fact  that 
diffusion  takes  place  through  it  very  readily.  Several 

103 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

of  us  spent  a  long  time  in  killing  with  ice-axes  those 
that  seemed  too  badly  injured  to  recover. 

It  was  remarkable  to  see  the  way  in  which  all  the 
nests  which  had  escaped  the  avalanche,  however 
narrowly,  were  still  sat  upon  by  their  occupants,  as 
if  nothing  had  happend.  Also  I  saw  several  badly 
injured  birds  sitting  on  their  eggs,  some  of  them 
soaked  in  blood,  so  that  they  looked  liked  crimson 
parrots.  The  amount  of  bloodshed  must  have  been 
great,  as  the  snow  was  dyed  with  blood  in  all  direc- 
tions. As  a  cascade  of  water  followed  the  avalanche, 
and  continued  for  some  hours,  spreading  out  into 
little  rivers  among  the  nests,  many  were  being 
deluged,  and  some  of  the  penguins  actually  were 
sitting  in  the  running  water,  in  a  vain  attempt  to 
keep  warm  their  drowned  chicks  and  spoiled  eggs. 

Sometimes,  digging  at  hazard  in  the  drifted  snow, 
I  came  on  birds  that  had  been  deeply  buried,  and 
though  they  were  held  down  and  kept  motionless  by 
the  weight  of  the  snow  covering  them,  most  of 
them  were  alive,  and  I  have  no  doubt  many  dozens 
died  a  lingering  death  in  this  way.  Such  as  had 
merely  suffered  broken  flippers  or  legs,  I  spared, 
and  the  next  day  nearly  all  of  these  seemed  to  be 
doing  well.  One  bird  I  found  sitting  on  two  eggs 
which  were  in  the  middle  of  a  rivulet  of  water,  so  I 
104 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

lifted  them  out  and  put  them  on  dry  ground  close 
by,  but  the  parent  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
them  after  this. 

A  feature  of  the  above  scene,  which  one  could  not 
help  noticing,  was  that  however  badly  a  penguin 
was  injured  it  was  never  molested  by  the  others,  as 
is  almost  invariably  the  rule  among  other  birds, 
including  their  near  neighbours  the  skuas.  I  have 
seen  [a  sick  skua  hunted  continuously  for  over  an 
hour  by  a  mob  of  its  own  kind  who  would  not 
allow  it  to  settle  on  the  ice  for  a  moment's  rest. 

Another  item  of  my  list  requiring  explanation  is 
"snow-drifts." 

During  both  spring  and  summer  there  are  occa- 
sional snowstorms,  and  during  these  the  birds  sit 
tight  on  their  nests,  sometimes  being  covered  up  by 
drift.  As  a  rule  the  bird  on  the  nest  keeps  a  space 
open  by  poking  its  head  upwards  through  the  snow, 
but  sometimes  it  becomes  completely  buried.  Air 
diffuses  so  rapidly  through  snow  that  death  does 
not  take  place  by  suffocation,  and  the  bird  can  live 
for  weeks  beneath  a  drift,  sitting  on  its  nest  in  the 
little  chamber  which  it  has  thawed  out  by  its  own 
warmth.  Generally  after  a  few  hours  the  snow 
abates  and  settles  down  sufficiently  to  expose  the 
nest  once  more,  but  sometimes  a  breeze  springs  up 

105 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

which  is  not  strong  enough  to  blow  the  snow  away, 
but  simply  hardens  the  surface  of  the  drift  into  a 
crust  which  lasts  for  several  weeks,  and  the  birds 
are  imprisoned  in  consequence.  Then  little  black 
dots  are  seen  about  the  surface  of  the  drift,  which 
are  the  heads  of  penguins  thrust  through  their 
breathing  holes. 

On  one  such  occasion  I  witnessed  an  interesting 
little  incident.  An  imprisoned  hen  was  poking 
her  neck  up  through  her  breathing  hole  when  her 
mate  spied  her  and  came  up.  He  appeared  to  be 
very  angry  with  her  for  remaining  so  long  on  the 
nest,  being  unable  to  grasp  the  reason,  and  after 
swearing  at  her  for  some  time  he  started  to  peck 
at  her  head,  she  retaliating  as  far  as  her  cramped 
position  would  allow.  When  she  withdrew  her 
head,  he  thrust  his  down  the  hole  till  she  drove  it 
out  again,  and  as  this  state  of  things  seemed  to  be 
going  on  indefinitely,  I  came  up  and  loosened  the 
crust  of  snow  which  imprisoned  her,  on  which  she 
burst  out,  and  seemed  glad  to  do  so.  She  was 
covered  with  mire,  having  for  many  days  been 
sitting  in  a  pool  of  thaw  water  which  had  swamped 
her  nest  and  evidently  spoilt  the  eggs.  When 
I  put  her  back  on  the  nest,  she  sat  there  for 
some  time,  but  eventually  they  both  deserted.  I 
106 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

should  say  that  some  hundreds  of  nests  were  spoilt 
in  this  way. 

As  I  photographed  the  above  incident  at  in- 
tervals, different  stages  are  seen  on  Figs.  67  to  69. 

I  have  mentioned  that  eggs  got  lost  owing  to 
cocks  fighting  among  the  nests.  When  hens  are 
incubating  the  eggs  they  never  leave  the  nest 
under  any  circumstances  until  relieved  by  their 
mates,  being  most  reliable  and  faithful  to  their 
charge.  They  squabble  continually  with  their 
nearest  neighbours,  whom  they  seem  to  hate,  but 
only  retaliate  on  those  within  reach,  using  their 
bills  only  to  peck  at  each  other's  heads  without 
shifting  their  position. 

The  cocks,  however,  are  less  dependable.  Start- 
ing a  quarrel  in  the  same  way  as  the  hens  do,  their 
militant  instincts  soon  became  aroused,  on  which 
they  are  apt  to  jump  up  and  start  a  furious  fight 
with  flippers,  staggering  to  and  fro  over  their 
nests,  and  very  often  spilling  the  eggs,  which  are 
lost  in  consequence.  On  certain  occasions  I  was 
able  to  interfere  between  the  combatants,  and  re- 
place the  eggs,  on  which  they  would  return  to 
their  domestic  duties  and  seem  to  forget  the 
incident.  A  good  many  eggs  must  have  been 
lost  in  this  way  during  the  season. 

107 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

Late  in  the  season  an  occurrence  took  place  for 
which  I  have  never  been  able  to  find  any  ex- 
planation. Occasionally  I  had  noticed  that  the 
penguins  had  crowded  together  more  than  usual 
on  the  ice-foot,  multitudes  of  them  standing  for 
hours  without  any  apparent  purpose.  A  good 
idea  of  this  scene  may  be  got  from  the  frontispiece. 

One  morning  Mr.  Priestley  came  into  the  hut 
and  told  me  that  "  the  penguins  were  drilling  on 
the  sea-ice,"  and  that  I  had  better  come  and  look 
at  them.  I  went  with  him  to  the  ice- foot,  and 
this  is  what  we  saw. 

Many  thousands  of  Adelies  were  on  the  sea-ice 
between  the  ice-foot  and  the  open  water  leads, 
then  some  quarter  of  a  mile  distant.  Near  the 
ice-foot  they  were  congregating  in  little  bands  of 
a  few  dozen,  whilst  farther  out  near  the  water, 
massed  bands  some  thousands  strong  stood  silent 
and  motionless.  Both  the  small  and  the  large 
bands  kept  an  almost  rectangular  formation,  whilst 
in  each  band  all  the  birds  faced  the  same  way, 
though  different  bands  faced  in  different  directions. 

As  we  watched  it  became  evident  that  some- 
thing very  unusual  was  going  on.  First,  from  one 
of  the  small  bands,  a  single  bird  suddenly  appeared, 
ran  a  few  yards  in  the  direction  of  another  small 
108 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

band,  and  stopped.  In  the  flash  of  a  moment  the 
entire  band  from  which  he  came  executed  the 
movement  "  left  turn,"  this  bringing  them  all  into 
a  position  facing  him.  So  well  ordered  was  the 
movement  that  we  could  scarcely  believe  our  eyes. 
Then  from  the  small  band  our  single  bird  had 
approached,  another  single  bird  ran  out,  upon 
which  his  own  party  did  exactly  as  the  first  had 
done,  so  that  the  two  bands  now  stood  facing 


one  another,  some  fifteen  yards  apart.  Then 
spontaneously,  the  two  bands  marched  straight 
toward  one  another,  and  joined  to  form  one  body. 
After  this  we  saw  the  same  procedure  being  enacted 
in  many  other  places,  the  penguins  coming  down 
from  the  rookery  and  forming  small  bands  which 
joined  together.  Then  the  augmented  bodies 
would  join  other  augmented  bodies,  to  form 
still  larger  ones,  which  then  joined  together,  and 

109 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

so  on  until  a  great  mass  of  birds  stood  together 
in  rows  all  facing  in  one  direction  like  a  regiment 
of  soldiers.  One  of  these  masses  stood  not  far 
from  us,  a  compact  rectangular  gathering,  as  shown 
on  page  109. 

They  stood  thus  for  a  long  time,  quite  motion- 
less and  silent,  when  suddenly  as  before,  a  single 
bird  darted  out  from  among  the  crowd  and  ran 
a  few  yards  toward  the  open  water,  when,  as  if 
it  had  received  a  word  of  command,  every  bird 
faced  left  as  in  the  diagram  below. 


I 


ARROW    SHOWS    DIRECTION    IN    WHICH    ALL 
THE    BIRDS    FACED 

After  this  the  whole  crowd  marched  for  the 
water,  keeping  its  formation  almost  unchanged  till 
it  arrived  at  the  edge  of  the  ice,  when  it  halted,  and 
subsequently  entered  the  water  in  batches. 

This  procedure  continued  for  many  hours,  the 
110 


I 


FIG.  67.     "AN  IMPRISONED  HEN  WAS  POKING  HER  HEAD  UP 

THROUGH    IIEH    BREATHING    HOLE  " 


L  '• 


FlG.     68.      "HER     MATE    APPEARED    TO    UK    VERY    ANGRY    WITH     HER,    BEING 

UNABLE    TO    GRASP    THE    REASON    WHY    SHE    COULD    NOT    COME 

OFF    THE    NEST  " 


106) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

penguins  that  day  observing  this  extraordinary 
behaviour,  the  most  astonishing  part  of  which 
lay  in  the  accuracy  of  their  drill-like  movements,  so 
that  we  might  have  been  watching  a  lot  of  soldiers 
on  parade.  Perhaps  the  sudden  motions  of  these 
bodies  of  birds  were  brought  about  by  a  sound 
uttered  by  the  single  bird  which  acted  as  leader, 
though  we  did  not  hear  this.  The  actual  reason 
for  this  departure  from  their  usual  customs  is 
beyond  my  knowledge.  There  was  nothing  to 
be  seen  to  account  for  it,  but  the  penguins  evidently 
obeyed  some  instinct  which  affected  them  all  on 
this  and  two  subsequent  occasions,  when  the  same 
thing  took  place. 

My  own  idea  is  that  in  former  times  the  penguins 
used  to  mass  together  as  other  birds  do,  before 
their  annual  migration,  perhaps  as  far  back  as 
the  day  when  their  wings  were  adapted  for  flight, 
and  that  the  phenomenon  described  above  was 
a  relic  of  their  bygone  instincts. 

When  the  chicks'  down  has  been  moulted 
and  their  plumage  acquired,  they  proceed  to  the 
water's  edge  and  here  they  learn  to  swim. 

In  the  autumn  of  1912,  at  a  small  rookery  which 
I  came  upon  on  Inexpressible  Island,  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  watching  their  first  attempts  in  this 

111 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

direction.  Crowds  of  young  Adelies  were  to  be 
seen  on  the  pebbly  beach  below  their  rookery, 
much  of  the  ice  having  disappeared  at  this  late 
season,  leaving  bare  patches  of  shingle  which  were 
very  suitable  for  the  first  swimming  lesson. 

Many  old  birds  paddled  in  for  a  short  distance, 
and  crouching  in  a  few  inches  of  water,  splashed 
about  with  their  flippers  to  give  the  youngsters 
a  lead.  Some  of  the  latter  needed  little  encourage- 
ment, and  took  readily  to  the  strange  element,  very 
soon  swimming  about  in  deep  water,  but  others 
seemed  more  timid,  and  these  latter  were  urged  in 
every  possible  way  by  the  old  birds,  some  of  whom 
could  be  seen  walking  in  and  out  of  the  water,  and 
so  doing  what  they  could  to  give  their  charges 
confidence. 

In  this  duty  one  or  two  old  birds  might  be  seen 
with  a  little  crowd  of  youngsters,  so  that  evidently 
the  social  instincts  which  gave  rise  to  the  creche 
system  in  the  first  place  were  extended  to  the 
tuition  of  the  young  and  thus  to  their  preparation 
for  the  journey  north. 

Up  in  the  rookery,  fully  fledged  youngsters  could 
be  seen  clamouring  in  vain  for  food,  the  old  birds 
resolutely  refusing  to  feed  them  now  that  they 
were  able  to  forage  for  themselves.  The  adults 
112 


FlG.    69.       "WHEN    SHE    BROKE    OUT,    THEY    BECAME    RECONCILED" 

(Priye  106) 


Vic..  7o.    ADKLIE'S  NKSTS  ON  TOP  OF  CAPE  ADARE,  TO  REACH  WHICH 

THEY    MUST    MAKE    A    PRECIPITOUS    CLIMB    OF     1000    FEET 

(I'ayeW) 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

who  instructed  the  young  in  the  water  had  finished 
their  moult,  and  were  themselves  ready  to  depart. 
Many  others,  however,  still  wandered  disconsolately 
about  the  land,  some  of  them  only  half  fledged,  and 
moping  under  boulders  or  any  sort  of  shelter  from 
the  chilly  breezes,  and  long  after  all  the  youngsters 
had  departed,  solitary  moulting  birds  were  to 
be  found,  emaciated  and  miserable,  patches  of 
loose  feathers  still  clinging  to  the  new  coat  which 
was  making  such  a  tardy  growth.  In  some  places 
we  found  these  old  birds  in  holes  under  the  rocks, 
the  old  moulted  feathers  making  some  sort  of  a  bed 
which  helped  to  protect  their  late  wearers  from  the 
cold. 

Both  at  Cape  Adare  in  1910  and  at  Inexpressible 
Island  in  1911,  I  found  that  though  young  and  old 
left  the  rookery  simultaneously  at  first,  yet  after  all 
the  young  had  departed  many  adults  still  remained 
behind  owing  to  the  lateness  of  their  moult,  and 
this  is  directly  at  variance  with  the  remarks  of  Mr. 
Borchgravink  on  the  subject,  because  he  says  that 
the  old  birds  all  leave  the  rookery  first,  abandoning 
the  young,  who  are  driven  by  necessity  to  take 
to  the  water  and  learn  to  swim. 

Well  indeed  was  it  for  my  companions  and 
me  that  this  was  so,  for  in  the  autumn  of  1912 

H  113 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

we  were  in  sore  straits  for  food,  and  had  it  not 
been  that  at  a  very  late  date  we  collected  some 
ninety  old  moulting  birds  on  Inexpressible  Island, 
I  doubt  if  we  would  have  seen  the  sun  rise  in  the 
next  spring. 

At  Cape  Adare  in  1911,  half  the  rookery  had 
departed  when  we  arrived  in  the  autumn.  The 
rest  took  to  the  sea  in  batches  some  hundreds 
strong.  These  parties  wandered  about  the  beach 
and  ice-foot  in  company  for  some  time,  then  enter- 
ing the  water  and  swimming  northward  they  were 
seen  no  more. 

Those  that  moulted  sometimes  remained  solitary 
whilst  in  the  acuter  stages,  but  nevertheless  moult- 
ing parties  often  were  seen  looking  very  miserable, 
doubtless  feeling  in  their  unprotected  state  the 
effects  of  winds  which  were  getting  keener  and 
and  more  severe  now  that  the  sun  was  departing. 

When  all  the  youngsters  had  gone,  some  thou- 
sands of  old  birds  still  remained,  and  waited  for 
many  days  after  they  had  acquired  their  full 
plumage  before  they  left.  Then  these  in  time 
disappeared,  leaving  the  rookery  empty  and  desolate. 
On  March  12  I  photographed  the  last  party :  all 
black- throated  adults.  Two  days  later  a  couple 
appeared  on  the  beach,  apparently  having  come 
114 


DOMESTIC  LIFE 

back  for  a  last  look  at  us.  Then  these,  too,  dis- 
appeared, and  as  we  looked  at  the  empty  silent 
beach  we  could  not  help  contrasting  it  with  the 
noise  and  bustle  of  a  short  time  ago. 

The  last  penguin  had  gone,  and  the  sun  dis- 
appearing below  the  horizon,  left  us  alone  with  the 
Antarctic  night. 


115 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

(A)    PLUMAGE  AND  SOFT  PARTS. 

The  following  description  of  the  plumage  and 
soft  parts  of  Pygoscelis  Adelice,  which  is  perfectly 
correct,  is  taken  from  the  zoological  report  of  the 
Discovery  Expedition. 

SOFT  PARTS. 

"  Bill,  when  first  hatched,  blackish.  A  week 
old,  black  terminally,  deep  red  at  the  gape  and 
along  the  cutting  edges.  Immature  of  the  first 
year,  blackish.  Adult,  brick-red,  the  upper  bill 
black  terminally,  and  the  mandible  black  along  the 
cutting  edge. 

"  Iris,  brown ;  varying  between  reddish  brown 
and  greenish  brown. 

"  Eyelids,  black  throughout  the  first  year ;  pure 
white  in  the  adult  at  fourteen  months  and  on- 
wards. 

"  Feet,  flesh  red ;  dusky  when  first  hatched, 
brightening  in  the  first  week  or  two.  Immature 

119 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

and  adult,  pale  flesh  pink  above,  black  beneath  (in 
some  cases  piebald  beneath). 
"  Claws,  brown." 

In  the  majority  of  the  chicks  the  down  is 
uniformly  dark  and  sooty,  but  here  and  there,  in 
progeny  of  quite  normal  parents,  one  may  find 
nestlings  of  so  pale  a  grey  as  to  be  almost  silvery 
white,  with  blackish  heads,  possibly  a  reversion  to 
an  earlier  type,  and,  at  any  rate,  suggestive  of  the 
young  of  the  Emperor  penguin,  which  perhaps 
represents  the  oldest  stock  of  all.  According  to 
Dr.  Bowdler  Sharp,  the  colour  of  the  head  is  in  all 
cases  blacker  in  the  earlier  stages  than  the  rest  of 
the  body.* 

As  the  chick  ages  the  colour  of  its  down 
changes,  and  all  of  it  takes  on  a  dull  rusty  brown 
colour.  As  it  moults  the  abdomen  and  thighs 
change  first,  and  white  feathers  appear  in  place  of 
the  down.  Then  come  changes  on  the  head,  round 
the  bill,  and  at  the  tail ;  the  upper  breast,  neck,  and 
back  being  the  last  parts  to  moult. 

The  feet,  which  in  the  young  nestling  have  been 
almost  black,  change  in  colour  to  a  brick-red  that 
shows  up  very  markedly  against  the  rusty  brown 

*  This  was  invariable  at  Cape  A  dare. 
120 


APPENDIX 

down,  looking  as  if  the  legs  were  raw  and  inflamed. 
Later  the  permanent  flesh  colour  is  acquired,  with 
black  plantar  surfaces.  The  nails  are  black  at  first, 
and  later  change  to  brown. 

When  the  nestling  down  is  shed,  the  resulting 
plumage  is  that  of  the  adult,  except  that  the  throat 
is  white  instead  of  black.  The  upper  part  of  the 
head  and  neck  are  bluish  black,  the  throat,  fore- 
neck,  breast,  and  abdomen  being  a  pure  dazzling 
metallic  white,  a  sharp  line  separating  the  white 
from  the  black  areas.  The  flippers  are  the  same 
bluish  "  tar  "  black  on  the  back  and  white  beneath. 

In  addition  to  the  distinctive  pure  white  plumage 
of  the  throat,  the  immature  bird  differs  from  the 
adult  in  one  very  marked  particular,  which  is  that 
the  eyelids  are  black,  as  in  the  chick,  and  do  not 
acquire  the  staring  whiteness  which  is  so  distinctive 
of  the  adult  Adelie  penguin,  increasing,  as  it  does, 
the  white  area  of  the  sclerotic  so  that  the  bird  has 
the  appearance  of  being  perpetually  surprised  or 
very  angry. 

The  iris  is  a  rich  reddish  brown  in  the  adults,  but 
variable  in  the  young. 

At  Cape  Adare  the  light  grey  "  silvery  "  coloured 
chicks  mentioned  by  Dr.  Wilson  were  by  no  means 
uncommon  ;  in  fact,  quite  a  large  proportion  of 

121 


ADELIE  PENGUINS 

the  chicks  had  very  light-coloured  down.  This  is 
shown  in  some  of  the  specimens  I  brought  back 
to  the  British  Museum. 


(B)  VARIATIONS. 

Variations  occasionally  are  met  with  in  the 
plumage  and  soft  parts  of  Adelies.  The  least  rare 
of  these  consist  of  tufts  of  white  feathers  amongst 
the  black  plumage  of  the  head.  Several  specimens 
so  marked  were  seen  at  Cape  Adare  during  the 
summer  of  1911-12. 

When  these  white  tufts  were  present  the  feathers 
comprising  them  were  usually  longer  than  the  black 
feathers  among  which  they  appeared,  so  that  they 
stuck  out  in  an  untidy  manner,  and  were  very  con- 
spicuous. 

In  marked  distinction  to  the  slight  variations 
above  described  were  the  three  "  Isabelline " 
varieties  that  I  preserved,  and  are  now  to  be  seen 
in  the  British  Museum  collection.  As  these  varia- 
tions are  very  startling,  and  of  the  greatest  interest, 
I  give  below  a  full  description  of  their  plumage  and 
soft  parts. 

First  specimen  captured    on    the   Cape   Adare 
rookery  on  November  4,  1911. 
122 


APPENDIX 

Iris,  light  brown.  Eyelids,  white.  Bill,  light 
brown.  Feet,  white.  Claws,  light  brown. 

The  whole  of  the  area  covered  by  black  feathers 
in  the  normal  bird  was  covered  by  those  of  a  very 
light  fawn,  somewhat  darker  on  the  neck  and 
shoulders  than  elsewhere.  Sex,  male. 

Second  specimen  captured  on  November  14, 1911. 

Iris,  light  brown.  Eyelids,  white.  Bill,  light 
brown ;  mandible,  blackish  on  dorsum ;  maxilla 
blackish  on  cutting  edges.  Feet,  white  on  both 
surfaces.  Claws,  light  brown. 

In  place  of  the  black  feathers  of  the  normal  bird, 
there  was  a  fawn-coloured  plumage,  darkest  on 
head  and  neck ;  lightest  at  bottom  of  back,  back  of 
flippers,  and  on  shoulders. 

Sex,  female. 

Third  specimen  captured  on  December  23,  1911. 

Iris,  light  brown.  Feet,  browny  white.  Claws, 
brown.  Bill,  brown ;  very  dark  on  dorsum  of 
mandible.  Eyelids,  white  with  a  pink  tinge. 

In  place  of  the  black  feathers  of  the  normal  bird, 
this  specimen  had  those  of  a  very  light  cream 
colour :  in  fact  very  slightly  darker  than  the  white 
area  but  deepening  in  shade  to  light  fawn  on  the 
head,  neck,  and  shoulders. 

Sex,  male. 

123 


APPENDIX 

The  second  specimen  had  mated  with  a  normal 
cock.  In  each  case  the  Isabelline  birds  were  very 
much  more  docile  than  the  normal  forms.  For 
instance,  they  did  not  struggle  when  picked  up,  as 
the  others  would  have  done,  and  the  third  specimen, 
when  brought  into  our  hut,  gazed  around  with 
curiosity  and  apparent  contentment,  and  showed 
not  the  least  resentment  at  its  captivity.  A  normal 
bird  would  have  struggled  and  fought  to  the  last 
extremity.  Each  bird  was  killed  with  chloroform. 

So  carefully  did  we  keep  the  entire  rookery  under 
observation  that  I  do  not  think  it  likely  there  were 
any  more  Isabelline  forms.  Thus  we  can  con- 
clude 7scPooo  roughly  represents  the  proportion  of 
Isabelline  forms  among  the  species. 


124 


PART  IIIj 
McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

A  BOOK  which  treats  of  Adelie  penguins  scarcely 
can  be  complete  without  reference  to  the  beautiful 
McCormick's  skua  gull  (Megalestris  MaccormicM}, 
as  probably  no  Adelie  rookery  exists  without  its 
attendant  band  of  skuas,  who  build  their  own  nests 
very  close  to  and  occasionally  among  those  of  the 
penguins  on  whom  they  prey,  almost  entirely 
supporting  themselves  and  their  young  upon  the 
eggs  and  young  offspring  of  their  hosts. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  these  birds  from  time 
to  time  through  the  previous  pages,  and  some  idea 
of  their  habits  already  will  have  been  formed.  In 
point  of  fearlessness  they  fall  somewhat  short  of 
the  Adelie,  but  exhibit,  perhaps,  rather  more 
caution  in  their  dealings  with  man  than  the  gulls 
who  visit  St.  James's  Park  in  London  and  are  fed 
by  the  children  there,  frequently  from  the  hand, 
though  probably  in  a  very  few  days  they  might 
become  extremely  tame  were  their  short  experience 
of  mankind  made  less  bitter.  The  majority  of 

125 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

explorers,  like  most  men,  though  kindly  by  nature, 
are  entirely  thoughtless  in  their  dealings  with  wild 
animals,  and  the  skuas  approach  them  only  to  be 
killed  or  severely  injured  by  the  ice-axes  or  rocks 
that  are  thrown  at  them  in  wanton  sport  as  they 
light  on  the  ground  or  hover  near  the  visitors, 
whom  they  quickly  discover  to  be  their  bitter  and 
relentless  foes. 

Arriving  at  the  rookeries  somewhat  later  than 
the  Adelies,  they  do  not  lay  their  eggs  until  the 
beginning  of  December.  Practically  no  nest  is 
made,  a  mere  hollow  being  worked  in  the  ground, 
in  which  the  bird  sits.  Frequently  several  hollows 
are  made  before  the  hen  finally  settles  where  she 
will  lay.  The  two  eggs,  which  are  brownish  olive 
thickly  and  darkly  mottled  with  brown,  are  incu- 
bated for  four  weeks,  after  which  the  chicks  are 
hatched. 

From  the  moment  of  their  first  appearance  from 
the  egg  these  chicks  exhibit  the  most  extraordinary 
precocity.  Covered  with  pale  slaty-grey  down, 
they  look  anything  but  the  pugnacious  little  animals 
they  turn  out  to  be.  Their  one  idea,  besides 
feeding,  seems  to  be  to  fight  one  another,  and  they 
may  be  seen  to  roll  about  the  nest,  locked  together, 
fighting  with  beak  and  claw.  They  are  fed  from 
126 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

the  ground,  and  may  be  seen  picking  about  among 
the  stones  like  the  little  domestic  chickens,  which 
they  very  much  resemble.  After  a  time  invariably 
one  of  the  chicks  disappears,  and  as  dead  youngsters 
are  not  to  be  found,  they  are  probably  eaten  by 
neighbours  who  have  caught  them  wandering ;  in 
fact,  Mr.  Ferrar,  of  Captain  Scott's  first  expedition, 
actually  saw  a  Skua  pick  up  a  wandering  chick  of 
its  own  species  and  fly  off  with  it,  followed  by  a 
screaming  flock  of  its  neighbours,  who  sought  to 
rob  it  of  its  prey. 

In  order  to  find  out  how  many  eggs  a  Skua 
would  lay,  I  marked  some  nests,  and  took  the  eggs 
as  they  were  laid.  In  each  case  a  second  egg  was 
laid,  but  when  this  was  taken  no  more  appeared. 
In  two  nests  I  removed  the  first  egg  as  soon  as  it 
was  laid,  but  left  the  second,  which  was  then  sat 
upon  by  the  parent,  who  was  content  with  it,  or 
unable  to  lay  a  third. 

When  any  of  us  approached  their  nests  the  old 
birds  would  fly  round  in  wide  circles,  making  wild 
"  stoops  "  at  our  heads  each  time  they  passed  over 
us,  in  the  evident  attempt  to  frighten  us  away. 
Occasionally  they  would  actually  knock  our  heads 
with  a  wing,  and  nothing  seeming  to  scare  them  off, 
they  would  swoop  past  us  time  after  time  in  a  most 

127 


McCORMlCK'S  SKUA  GULL 

disconcerting  manner.  In  order  to  keep  them  at  a 
distance  without  having  to  keep  a  constant  look- 
out, when  I  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  their 
nest,  I  used  to  walk  about  holding  a  ski-stick  or 
the  handle  of  my  ice-axe  straight  above  me,  and 
they  would  swoop  at  the  top  of  this  instead  of  my 
head,  which  was  infinitely  preferable.  One  day 
when  a  high  wind  was  blowing  on  top  of  Cape 
Adare,  I  had  my  ice-axe  knocked  clean  out  of  my 
hand  by  one  of  the  Skuas  flying  straight  into  the 
handle,  the  heavy  blow  seeming  to  affect  the  bird 
but  slightly. 

There  was  a  "  skuary  "  on  the  screes,  close  to  a 
thickly  populated  part  of  the  rookery,  but  the 
majority  of  these  birds  made  their  nests  right  at 
the  top  of  Cape  Adare,  from  which  point  of 
vantage  they  surveyed  the  entire  rookery,  and  a  very 
sharp  look-out  they  kept  too,  for  no  sooner  did 
we  start  to  flense  a  seal  than  a  flock  of  them 
descended  to  gobble  at  the  lumps  of  blubber  as  we 
threw  them  on  the  ground.  In  this  occupation 
they  exhibited  the  greatest  jealousy,  and  when 
there  was  a  hundred  times  as  much  blubber  on  the 
ground  as  all  the  skuas  possibly  could  have  eaten* 
they  continually  tried  to  drive  each  other  away. 
When  fighting  they  rarely  stayed  on  the  ground, 
128 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

but  leapt  at  one  another  into  the  air,  and  one  of 
the  illustrations  shows  two  Skuas  in  the  act  of  doing 
this.  Their  great  spread  of  wing  is  well  shown  in 
this  photograph.  (Fig.  71.) 

When  penguins'  eggs  were  plentiful  in  the 
rookery  the  Skuas  flew  very  low  over  the  ground, 
and  as  they  passed  over  each  colony  of  nests  the 
sitting  birds  would  crouch  low  upon  them,  a  very 
necessary  precaution,  as  I  have  described  already 
in  these  pages  the  unerring  way  in  which  the  Skuas 
picked  up  the  penguins'  eggs  when  they  were  left 
uncovered.  Broken  and  empty  shells  strewed  the 
ground  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Skuas'  nests,  and  it  is 
probable  that  in  a  large  rookery,  such  as  that  at 
Cape  Adare,  thousands  of  eggs  are  destroyed  by 
them  annually. 

The  instinct  of  the  thief  is  most  strongly  marked 
in  the  Skua  tribe,  and  I  am  afraid  that  the  mere 
love  of  thieving  alone  actuates  them  on  many 
occasions.  For  instance,  when  I  was  skinning  a 
seal  one  day  near  Cape  Evans  I  left  a  pair  of  field- 
glasses  lying  on  a  coat  close  by,  and  on  looking 
round  saw  a  Skua  in  the  act  of  making  off  with 
them,  holding  them  by  the  strap  in  his  beak.  A 
sudden  yell  caused  the  offender  to  drop  the  glasses, 
fortunately  when  they  were  but  a  yard  from  the 

I  129 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

ground.  Again,  when  the  crew  of  an  Antarctic 
ship  were  engaged  in  blasting  the  sea-ice  which 
imprisoned  it,  a  Skua  flew  off  with  one  of  the 
detonators  which  had  been  left  on  the  ice.  I 
think  the  detonator  contained  dynamite,  but  at 
any  rate  I  am  told  that  there  was  a  stampede 
on  the  part  of  the  men  to  get  away  from  under 
the  bird  as  it  flew  overhead  ! 

When,  with  two  companions,  I  visited  a  skuary 
at  the  back  of  the  penguin  rookery  at  Cape  Royds, 
the  Skuas  circled  over  us  in  a  way  I  have  described 
above,  but  instead  of  swooping  at  our  heads,  some 
of  them  repeatedly  dropped  their  guano  on  to  us  as 
they  passed  over,  timing  the  process  with  such 
surprising  accuracy  that  I  was  hit  once,  and 
Commander  Campbell  no  less  than  three  times. 
The  following  year  when  at  Cape  Adare,  I  ex- 
pected the  same  treatment  from  the  Skuas  there,  but 
curiously  enough,  these  never  did  it.  That  one 
skuary  should  have  adopted  such  tactics  and 
another  not,  is  a  very  curious  thing,  but  it  may 
possibly  be  that  the  Cape  Royds  Skuas  discovered 
the  trick  during  the  stay  of  Sir  Ernest  Shackleton's 
expedition,  who  had  spent  a  year  there  quite 
recently,  and  of  the  Discovery  expedition  which 
spent  two  years  at  Hut  Point,  but  a  few 
130 


FlG.    71.       "LEAPT   AT  ONE    ANOTHER    INTO   THE    AIR" 


(Page  129) 


FIG.  72.     A   SKL-   uv  rrs  CHICK 


(I'agc  131) 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

miles  distant,  whereas  the  only  men  who  ever 
inhabited  Cape  Adare  wintered  there  some  fifteen 
years  before.  But  this  is  mere  speculation. 

When  one  of  the  parent  Skuas  is  on  the  ground 
near  its  nest,  on  the  approach  of  anyone  it  throws 
its  head  back,  opens  its  wings,  and  loudly  proclaims 
its  whereabouts  with  its  raucous  cawing  notes. 
When  hovering  over  food,  and  at  other  times  when 
not  alarmed  or  angry,  the  sounds  made  by  a  Skua 
are  very  like  those  of  the  common  Herring  Gull, 
and  not  altogether  unmusical  at  times,  especially 
when  making  the  little  shrill  piping  note,  by  which 
I  have  often  thought  that  gulls  so  nearly  imitate 
the  squeaking  of  a  block  in  its  sheaf. 

When  the  penguin  chicks  are  hatched,  the  Skuas 
prey  upon  these  in  a  most  cruel  manner,  and  should 
a  chick  wander  away  from  the  protecting  old  birds, 
a  Skua  is  almost  certain  to  pounce  upon  and  kill 
it.  This  it  does  by  pecking  its  eyes  out,  after 
which,  with  powerful  strokes  of  its  beak,  it  gets 
to  work  on  its  back  and  quickly  devours  the 
kidneys. 

The  dead  bodies  of  hundreds  of  chicks  are  seen 
strewn  about  the  rookery,  and  especially  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  Skuas'  nests,  as  very  often 
they  carry  them  there.  All  these  dead  chicks  are 

181 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

seen  to  have  two  holes  picked  through  their  backs, 
one  on  each  side,  corresponding  to  the  position 
of  each  kidney. 

Besides  the  penguins'  eggs  and  young,  there  is 
another  fruitful  source  of  food  for  the  Skuas  to  be 
found  along  the  Antarctic  coasts  at  the  early  part 
of  the  year,  and  that  is  during  the  time  when  the 
seals  are  bringing  forth  their  young  upon  the  sea- 
ice.  The  Skuas  attend  upon  them  then,  and  devour 
the  after-births.  In  the  second  volume  of  the 
Discovery  reports  Dr.  Wilson  mentions  that 
large  numbers  of  Skuas  were  noticed  at  Granite 
Harbour,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  had 
congregated  there  for  this  purpose,  as  when  passing 
the  spot  on  a  spring  journey  along  the  sea-ice  in 
1912,  we  saw  many  hundreds  of  Weddell  seals  with 
their  young.  So  many  were  there,  that  as  we  lay 
in  our  sleeping-bags  during  the  night,  the  bleating 
of  the  little  calves  near  our  tents  conveyed  to  our 
half-awakened  senses  the  impression  that  we  were 
in  the  midst  of  lambing  fields  at  home ! 

The  soft  parts  are  coloured  as  follows : 
BUI  black. 
Iris,  dark  brown. 

Legs,  toes,  and  icebbs,  black,  excepting  a  patch  of 
132 


McCORMICK'S  SKUA  GULL 

bright  blue  just  above  the  tibio-metatarsal  joint,  in 
young  fledglings.  Wholly  black  afterwards.  (They 
have  a  very  fine  spread  of  webb.) 

Claws,  black. 

The  feathers  of  the  head,  neck,  and  breast  vary 
from  very  light  buff,  or  almost  white,  to  rich  dark 
brown. 


SKUAS'  TIME  TABLE 


McMurdo  Sound 

Cape  Adare 

1902               1903 

1911 

1st  bird  arrived 

Nov.    3     Oct.  25 

Oct.  26 

1st  egg  seen  . 

Dec.    9     Dec.    2 

Nov.  29 

1st  chick  hatched    . 

Jan.     1 

Last  bird  left 

Mar.  30     Apr.    7 

133 


A  SHORT  NOTE  ON  EMPEROR 
PENGUINS* 

THE  Emperor  is  by  far  the  largest  of  all  penguins, 
weighing  between  80  and  90  Ibs.  It  is  also  a 
particularly  handsome  and  graceful  bird.  By 
nature  it  seems  much  like  the  Adelie,  except  that 
its  general  demeanour  is  extremely  dignified,  and 
its  gait,  as  it  approaches  you  over  the  snow,  slow 
and  deliberate. 

The  most  marked  difference  in  the  habits  of  the 
Adelie  and  the  Emperor  lies  in  the  respective 
seasons  at  which  each  lays  and  incubates  its  eggs. 
Unlike  the  Adelie,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  choses 
the  warmest  and  lightest  months  of  the  year  for  the 
rearing  of  its  young,  the  Emperor  performs  this  duty 
in  the  darkest,  coldest,  and  most  tempestuous  time. 
The  only  reason  that  has  been  suggested  for  this  cus- 
tom is  that  many  months  must  pass  before  the  chicks 
are  fully  fledged.  Were  they  hatched  in  December 
(midsummer)  as  are  Adelies,  autumn  would  find 

*  Aptenodytea  Forsteri. 
134 


them  still  unfledged,  and  probably  they  would 
perish  in  consequence,  whereas,  being  hatched  in  the 
early  spring,  they  are  fostered  by  their  parents  until 
the  warmer  weather  begins,  and  then  have  the 
entire  summer  in  which  to  accomplish  their  change 
of  plumage. 

The  only  Emperor  rookery  known  to  man  at  the 
present  day  was  discovered  by  Lieuts.  Royds  and 
Skelton,  of  Captain  Scott's  first  Antarctic  expedition, 
on  the  sea-ice  beneath  Cape  Crozier.  Here  in  the 
dark  days  of  July  this  extraordinary  bird  lays  its 
one  egg  upon  the  ice. 

In  the  winter  of  1911  a  very  brave  journey  was 
made  to  this  spot  by  a  party  of  Captain  Scott's 
officers,  consisting  of  Dr.  Wilson,  Lieut.  Bowers 
and  Mr.  Cherry- Garrard.  The  experiences  of  this 
little  band  were  so  terrible  that  it  is  remarkable 
they  ever  returned  to  tell  of  them.  Temperatures 
of  —78°  F.  were  encountered,  and  the  most  severe 
blizzards  at  lower  temperatures  than  any  sledging- 
party  had  yet  endured.  Under  these  truly  terrible 
conditions  the  Emperors  lay  their  eggs  and  hatch 
their  young. 

The  mortality  under  such  circumstances  is  very 
high,  as  one  would  expect.  Avalanches  of  ice  fall 
from  the  cliffs  above,  crushing  many  of  the  parent 

135 


EMPEROR  PENGUINS 

birds,  and  causing  hundreds  of  eggs  to  be  deserted. 
As  Dr.  Wilson  stated,  the  ice  cliffs  beneath  which 
these  remarkable  animals  sat  were  so  unstable  that 
no  man  in  his  senses  would  camp  for  a  single  night 
beneath  them.  In  spite  of  this,  evidence  showed 
that  after  an  avalanche  of  ice  blocks  from  above, 
which  had  caused  some  of  the  Emperors  to  leave 
their  eggs  on  the  ice  and  bolt  in  terror,  many  of 
them  had  returned  and  continued  to  sit  on  the  eggs 
which  had  been  frozen  and  killed  by  the  frost  in 
their  absence,  continuing  to  do  so  long  after  they 
were  completely  rotten.  Indeed,  in  their  desire 
for  something  to  hatch,  some  who  had  been  deprived 
of  their  eggs,  were  seen  to  be  attempting  to  incubate 
pieces  of  ice  in  their  place,  and,  unlike  Adelies, 
they  seem  ever  ready  to  snatch  and  foster  the  young 
of  their  neighbours. 

The  first  time  the  rookery  at  Cape  Crozier  was 
visited,  not  above  one  thousand  birds  occupied 
it.  On  the  second  occasion  their  numbers  were 
far  short  of  this.  By  the  springtime  only  one 
out  of  ten  or  twelve  birds  are  seen  to  be  rearing 
young,  so  it  is  obvious  other  rookeries  await  dis- 
covery in  other  parts,  as  there  are  a  large  number 
of  Emperors  to  be  seen  along  the  Antarctic  coasts. 

When  in  the  Terra  Nova  we  made  our  way 
136 


,s 

fe; 


FIG.  74.     PROFILE  OF  AX  EMPEKOIt 


134) 


EMPEROR  PENGUINS 

along  the  face  of  the  great  Barrier  to  the  eastward 
we  saw  large  numbers  of  Emperors,  especially  to 
the  extreme  eastward  where  a  heavy  hang  of  pack-ice 
blocked  our  further  passage,  and  I  have  little  doubt 
that  future  exploration  will  disclose  a  rookery  or 
rookeries  in  this  direction. 

Again,  in  the  spring  of  1912,  when  nearing  the 
end  of  a  sledge  journey  from  the  northward  to  Cape 
Evans  we  passed  large  gatherings  of  Emperor 
penguins  on  some  very  old  sea-ice  under  the  Barrier's 
edge,  along  the  southern  end  of  McMurdo  Sound, 
and  it  seems  not  at  all  unlikely  that  they  may 
breed  here  too.  Unfortunately  we  were  unable  at 
that  time  to  make  detours,  so  had  to  leave  the 
question  unsettled,  but  if  they  do  breed  here,  they 
must  have  far  to  go  to  get  food  during  those 
winters  when  the  sea-ice  does  not  break  out  of  the 
Sound. 

The  growth  of  the  Emperor  chick  is  slow,  when 
compared  with  the  mushroom-like  rate  at  which 
the  Ade'lie  youngster  increases  its  substance. 

Approximately  the  egg  is  laid  at  the  beginning 
of  July  and  hatched  out  some  seven  or  eight  weeks 
later.  During  the  period  of  incubation,  which  duty 
is  shared  by  all,  male  and  female  alike,  the  egg  is 
held  in  a  loose  fold  of  skin  at  the  lower  part  of  the 

137 


EMPEROR  PENGUINS 

abdomen,  the  skin  of  the  adults  being  worn  bare  of 
feathers  in  this  region. 

When  hatched  out,  the  chick  is  coveted  by  every 
unoccupied  adult,  and  so  desperate  at  times  are  the 
struggles  for  its  possession  that  very  frequently  it 
gets  injured  or  killed  by  its  would-be  foster  parents. 
Dr.  Wilson  has  estimated  the  mortality  among  the 
chicks  before  they  shed  their  down  at  77  per  cent, 
and  thinks  that  half  this  number  are  killed  by 
kindness.  Very  often,  in  fact,  they  will  crawl  under 
projecting  ledges  of  ice,  or  anywhere  to  escape  the 
attentions  of  half  a  dozen  or  so  of  adults,  all  bear- 
ing down  upon  them  together,  only  to  meet  and 
struggle  for  their  possession,  during  which  process 
the  innocent  cause  may  get  trampled  and  clawed  to 
death.  So  strong  is  the  maternal  instinct  of  the 
Emperor,  that  frozen  and  lifeless  chicks  are  carried 
about  and  nursed  until  their  down  is  worn  away. 
In  fact,  the  scientists  who  visited  the  rookery  were 
unable  to  get  good  specimens  of  dead  chicks,  as  all 
of  these  had  been  treated  in  this  way. 

Fortunately  the  Emperor  chick  escapes  the 
depredation  of  the  Skua  gull,  which  plays  such 
havoc  in  the  Adelie  rookeries,  because  the  Skua  does 
not  come  south  until  the  summer,  by  which  time  the 
Emperor  chicks  are  well  grown.  As  in  the  case  of 
138 


EMPEROR  PENGUINS 

the  AcMies,  the  black  throat  is  not  acquired  until 
the  second  moult.  When  this  has  taken  place,  the 
bird  looks  remarkably  handsome.  The  bill,  which 
is  curved  and  tapering,  is  bluish  black,  but  the 
posterior  half  of  the  mandible  is  coloured  a  beautiful 
lilac.  The  head  and  throat  are  black,  whilst  on  each 
side  of  the  neck  is  a  patch  of  vivid  orange  feathers. 
The  rest  of  the  body  is  marked  in  the  same  way  as 
the  Adelie. 

The  mortality  among  the  chicks  being  so  very 
high,  the  probability  is  that  the  life  of  the  adult  is 
long,  as  otherwise  the  species  could  hardly  survive. 
Dr.  Herbert  Klugh  has  calculated  that  the  Emperor 
penguin  lives  for  thirty-five  years. 

Evidence  goes  to  show  that  the  young  birds 
spend  their  immaturity  on  the  pack-ice,  as  all  those 
sighted  and  collected  on  the  pack  at  any  dis- 
tance to  the  northward  have  been  immature,  and 
no  immature  birds  have  been  seen  along  the  coasts 
at  any  time  during  the  summer. 

The  food  of  the  Emperor  mainly  consists  of  fish 
and  crustaceans.  There  are  invariably  many  small 
pebbles  in  the  stomach.  Like  Adelies  they  must  of 
course  have  open  water  within  reach  in  order  to 
get  food,  and  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cape  Crozier 
this  is  always  to  be  found,  as  the  rapid  tide  there 

139 


EMPEROR  PENGUINS 

keeps  the  sea  from  freezing  in  over  a  considerable 
area,  so  that  probably  they  never  have  to  walk 
more  than  a  mile  or  two  to  get  food. 

The  cry  of  the  Emperor  is  very  loud  and  travels 
far  across  the  ice.  When  sledging  over  the  sea-ice 
in  the  spring,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Cape  Adare, 
a  curious  sound  was  heard  at  times,  reminding  one 
strongly  of  the  "overtone"  notes  of  a  ship's  steam 
horn.  The  sounds  puzzled  us  at  the  time,  but  1 
think  now  that  most  probably  they  were  made  by 
Emperor  penguins. 

The  egg  of  the  Emperor  is  white,  pyriform  in 
shape,  and  weighs  just  under  1  Ib. 

My  own  experience  of  these  birds  being  limited 
I  do  not  intend  to  enter  deeply  into  the  subject. 
The  only  surviving  member  of  the  band  who  visited 
Cape  Crozier  during  the  winter  is  Mr.  Cherry- 
Garrard,  and  it  is  much  to  be  hoped  that  some  day 
he  will  write  us  an  account  of  what  he  saw  there. 
In  the  meantime  for  further  details  of  the  habits 
and  morphology  of  the  species,  the  reader  is  referred 
to  Dr.  Wilson's  work,  published  in  the  second 
volume  of  the  British  Museum  Reports,  on  the 
National  Antarctic  Expedition  1901-1904. 


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